Early Religions

[DirtyMartini]

Quillans mention of huge maps made me think. I don't play those, but I guess as you go up in map size and number of civs, the odds of having religion founded near you, and subsquently spreading to you, go down. In those cases, fouding your own would be more of a priority -- much more actually.

[wodan11]

I'm not sure I agree with that, DM. The chance you can successfully found your own religion goes down, the more civs there are trying to beat you to it.

So yeah the benefits might be more, but the risk is higher, too.

Wodan

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by wodan11
I'm not sure I agree with that, DM. The chance you can successfully found your own religion goes down, the more civs there are trying to beat you to it.

So yeah the benefits might be more, but the risk is higher, too.

Wodan

Yeah, with a lot of civs you'll rarely get an early religion, even if you start with Mysticism. Unless your map has a lot of small landmasses, you can find and take a shrine.

[DirtyMartini]

Ah, didn't think of that. Good point. Like I said, I don't play the big maps or with more than standard number of civs. I was just trying to understand why people seem so devoted to the idea of founding Buddhism or Hindusim, and realized my strategy of passive spread and/or conquer might not work in some situations.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Quillan
You don't have to found a religion to get the benefits.

For some of them you do. Having an early shrine can be a real boost to your economy, with the holy city being a veritable cash cow. Plus it's a distinct advantage having the reduced costs for spying on your neighbour's cities if they have your religion in them. You don't get either of these if you just adopt someone else's religions. Personally I'd prefer to have these benefits myself rather than allow some other civ to have them. Having Montezuma as a neighbour and allowing him to found Buddhism might make the difference between victory or defeat. I'd much rather take that opportunity away from him if I can.

[Willem]

Originally posted by wodan11
I'm not sure I agree with that, DM. The chance you can successfully found your own religion goes down, the more civs there are trying to beat you to it.

So yeah the benefits might be more, but the risk is higher, too.

Wodan

Not necessarily. There might be a lot of civs that don't start with Mysticism, leaving the race wide open. I've quite often seen civs like the Dutch or French end up with Hinduism as there weren't enough religious civs to cover both Meditation and Polytheism. I've even seen the Dutch end up with Buddhism. And I've had games where I'd pop Mysticism from my first hut on my first turn and beat everyone to an early religion.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Willem
Having Montezuma as a neighbour and allowing him to found Buddhism might make the difference between victory or defeat. I'd much rather take that opportunity away from him if I can.

I'm becoming very redundant, but I would hope that he does found Buddhism instead of heading toward Iron Working. He can go ahead and found his religion, I'll be taking it from him soon enough. I get all the benefits plus a second capital site. I realize this requires early warmongering, and some people may not be into that, but I just think that early warmongering is the way to go, especially if you have a holy city right next door.

[wodan11]

Okay Willem so you say "not necessarily" to my "not necessarily".

Not sure what that means, but I think it means it can go either way. Which was my point to start with.

Wodan

[Willem]

Originally posted by wodan11
Okay Willem so you say "not necessarily" to my "not necessarily".

Not sure what that means, but I think it means it can go either way. Which was my point to start with.

Wodan

What I was trying to say was that with so many civs in the game now, it's quite concievable that you might have a game where no civ starts with Mysticism, leaving the early religions wide open to anyone. Of course the opposite is true as well. In short, trying to grab an early religion now is a gamble that can pay off or not. Do you feel lucky?

[Willem]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
I realize this requires early warmongering, and some people may not be into that, but I just think that early warmongering is the way to go, especially if you have a holy city right next door.

Well I'm one of those that doesn't like early warmongering, usually. Though I'm getting into it more these days. Plus sometimes I'm too busy keeping the barbs off my back to effectively raise a suitable early army. And I've had games where I've done just as you've suggested and had my economy tank out because that holy city was too far from my capital. So overall I think it's preferable to get that religion for myself if I can, rather than take the chance that a pesky neighbour runs away with it.

[wodan11]

Well sure, conceptually you're right. However, we were talking about Huge maps with lots of civs. The chances of what you're talking about are pretty darn slim.

If, however, we were talking about small maps, you've got a point.

Wodan

[joncnunn]

In my current game; I Chariot-rushed my neighbor who had founded Hinduism in his capital and therefore got it along with a second capital early on. (And a worker to boot).

Now it did take a very long time for me to get a Great Phophet; something like 1600s AD. I instead got lots of Great Scientists,a few Merchants, and an Artist before a GP was produced.

As to the reason for the Chariot rush; it was a normal sized map, but the starting landmass had two players and wasn't big enough for both of us (or more precisely the non-ice section since half of the landmass was Ice), so he had to go quickly.

[Willem]

Originally posted by wodan11
The chances of what you're talking about are pretty darn slim.

Not really. I play on Huge maps with the default number fo civs and it's not that unusual to see some non-Mysticism civs end up with Buddhism or Hinduism. But I've also had games where there'd be 4 or 5 civs that do start with that tech. The odds of beating other civs to Buddhism are probably better now than it was with vanilla, where you were pretty much guarenteed to have at least 1 civ with Mysticism as a starting tech.

[couerdelion]

Happiness IS the point and if I were to give an example from a current game I have acquired Hinduism in TWO cities by 180 AD!!! They probably went to the two least useful cities with neither hammers for spreading or with serious happiness problems. Random religion spread from a neighbour is unreliable and is hardly going to target the most needy cities.

Whipping is hardly a solution to this problem. Excluding the capital, the happiness cap for a garrisoned city at emperor level is 3 so it is possible to grow to size 4 and whip immediately. Thereafter, you cannot even grow back to size 3 until the whip unhappiness has gone. So you’re stuck building workers and settlers as size 2 unless you can find a way of getting extra happiness.

Leaving others to bring religion to you is a lottery. Founding one yourself leaves nothing to chance and brings other benefits than happiness. Culture is the next big bonus.

To put this in an extreme example, the above position was one where my nearest happiness improvement were gems required Iron Working (in fact the lot of them were quickly bagged by barbs). Next on the list were spices and sugar.

If I were to order happiness resources as I acquired them it would be

a) Gems (post Iron-Working capture of barb city)
b) Fur/Gold (post Sailing traded goods)
c) Hammam (Mathematics)

Waiting for trade, Iron Working or Mathematics can be a very long wait while being stuck at size 2/3 cities.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Happiness IS the point and if I were to give an example from a current game I have acquired Hinduism in TWO cities by 180 AD!!! They probably went to the two least useful cities with neither hammers for spreading or with serious happiness problems. Random religion spread from a neighbour is unreliable and is hardly going to target the most needy cities.

Whipping is hardly a solution to this problem. Excluding the capital, the happiness cap for a garrisoned city at emperor level is 3 so it is possible to grow to size 4 and whip immediately. Thereafter, you cannot even grow back to size 3 until the whip unhappiness has gone. So you’re stuck building workers and settlers as size 2 unless you can find a way of getting extra happiness.

Leaving others to bring religion to you is a lottery. Founding one yourself leaves nothing to chance and brings other benefits than happiness. Culture is the next big bonus.

To put this in an extreme example, the above position was one where my nearest happiness improvement were gems required Iron Working (in fact the lot of them were quickly bagged by barbs). Next on the list were spices and sugar.

If I were to order happiness resources as I acquired them it would be

a) Gems (post Iron-Working capture of barb city)
b) Fur/Gold (post Sailing traded goods)
c) Hammam (Mathematics)

Waiting for trade, Iron Working or Mathematics can be a very long wait while being stuck at size 2/3 cities.

I agree with most of this except one half-sentence:

´Founding one yourself leaves nothing to chance´

at least as long as we are talking about early religions...