Early Religions

[Ming]

While an early religion does indeed provide some culture and happiness, I don't see it as a big draw back to wait for somebody else's religion to spread to me. My initial concern in most games is surviving, so I'd much prefer to start right down one of the military paths. There are other ways to generate culture early, and happiness caps can be dealt with by whipping.

Going down the military paths early gives you a leg up on your neighbors, and will usually allow you to take one out early... taking advantage of all the wonderful improvements they've done while you built a military

[Theben]

Playing as Washington, Prince, BtS, SP I managed to get 6 out of the 7 world religions. So yes you can get an early religion w/o mysticism start. It helps to have a coastal start with food resources, as they give you food and the necessary coins for research. But if Ming was near me that game I likely would've been dead (I think I got BW early but not Arch, and didn't build many units until later).

I never try for Buddhism anymore, even with mysticism start. Monotheism is easy enough and not far off the military path. If fact one could argue that -25% production for buildings will save hammers for more units.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Willem
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.

I think this a difference of something such as 33% to 35%... to minor to nitpick about. Even if all the civs were ones that didn't start with Mysticism, it's still a rat race. And, the point is, no matter how you look at it, it's a risk. Besides, when you have to make this decision, you don't know what other civs are in the game.

I agree with Ming or whoever said that an early combat tech is much more important. Second to that I'd say worker techs. The risk of not getting the religion just makes it not worth it in even the slightest.

Even if you were 100% guaranteed of getting the religion, I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Wodan

[Willem]

Originally posted by wodan11
Even if you were 100% guaranteed of getting the religion, I'm not sure it would be worth it.

I'd have to disagree with that assessment. I find the extra cash that a shrine brings quite valuable in the early game. Sometimes I can raise my research spending by 20% or more just by having that extra gold coming in. Though I agree that going for an early religion is a risk. I don't bother unless I start with Mysticism and have a tile or two that generates commerce. Other than that I'll go for Confuciaism

[Theben]

Originally posted by Willem

Sometimes I can raise my research spending by 20% or more just by having that extra gold coming in.

If that's all you get, you'd be better off beelining Writing and getting some libraries for +25% research.

EDIT: Although this brings up another point- that w/o religion(s) in your cities you can't build monasteries and get +10% research per. Pretty useful early on.

[Ming]

While my neighbor is busy building the shrine, spreading their religion, and building monasteries... I'm building the army needed to take them ALL away from him. And then at the end of the day, I will have both the religion/shrine and an army to do it all over again to somebody else

[The Priest]

While my neighbour is scrabbling around with small cities full of unhappy citizens, barely better than barbarians, amassing an ill-equipped army, the glorious cities of the Lord are peaceful, large, rich, full of industry and commerce able to sustain highly developed professional armies, who laugh at the barbarian hordes.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Theben


If that's all you get, you'd be better off beelining Writing and getting some libraries for +25% research.

With Libraries and my shrine income, I can boost my research by 45%. Besides, having a shrine means I get gold for doing practically nothing as the religion will quite often spread itself. I don't have to build anything for it and use up any production.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Ming
While my neighbor is busy building the shrine, spreading their religion, and building monasteries... I'm building the army needed to take them ALL away from him. And then at the end of the day, I will have both the religion/shrine and an army to do it all over again to somebody else

That's presuming that there's a holy city nearby for you to take. If it's on the other side of the continent and you have to go through two or three other civs to get to it, it's not going to be that easy of a prize. And not everyone plays the warmonger, some of us prefer more of a builder approach.

[Ming]

I did say "neighbor"

I'm either a builder or a warmonger, depending on the starting position, civ, neighbors, land, whatever.

I do lean toward the agressive side, because at the higher levels, it really helps.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Theben


If that's all you get, you'd be better off beelining Writing and getting some libraries for +25% research.

Not necessarily true. Let's say a city is bringing in 10 raw commerce, and my slider is at 50%. Raising my slider by 20% will give me 2 extra beakers a turn, building a library will give me 1 extra beaker a turn. The lower my slider, the more raising the slider benefits me as compared to building a library. The thing to realize is that the slider is % of total commerce, building bonuses are % of % of total commerce.

[Harniac]

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.

Playing on Monarch, I always choose a civ with Mysticism in SP and go for Polytheism. And 9 times out of 10 I get it. I build my whole strategy around this.

I find that Huanya Capac and the Incas fit my strategy best. The first round, I choose Poly and set to build a settler. I get Poly in about 22 rounds on Epic. And when the settler is ready, I start building Stonehenge, either in my capital, or in my new city, depending on the terrain. In the other city I build a worker that start connecting roads to all the surrounding rivers.

The next step is to use these roads to build up to a total of 8 cities before 1AD. By now, my economy is shattered. I probably have only around 20-40% research and most cities on 1 or 2 pops.

But then, it all changes! By now I get a prophet from the Stonehenge, and can start making massive amounts of money from the Holy Shrine. Last game I could go right from 30% to 100% research based on the new income.

After that, it's just a matter of building up the cities and planning my first attack...

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Ming
With the exception of being able to build the shrine, and a free missionary... what real advantage is their to actually founding a religion. One of your neighbors will usually try very hard to make sure they spread theirs to you, so eventually, you will get a religion.

As far as being able to build a shrine... why bother. It's usually easier to just take it from another civ through conquest That way, I can use my great people for golden ages...

Well, you also get religion in your cities a lot earlier by founding Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jewdiasm, then you would by just sitting back and waiting for one of the AI's to give you a religion. That makes a pretty big difference; the extra happiness in your capital, the easy cultural expansion in your other cities, and the earlier research bonus from the monistary all combine to a pretty big early game economic advantage. The shrine is also huge, of course, especally since if you found one of the early religions you can spread it quite far without using hammers on missionaries.

Don't get me wrong; waiting for an AI to spread a religion to you is a decent option, but you definatly get more benifits if you can manage to found one of the early ones yourself.

[Krill]

Going religion first usually hamstrings you more than it benefits you; you have to delay getting the important economic techs. If, OTOH, you don't delay on the important economic techs and grow you economy, you can then use your increased economic power to kill the poor sap who did get an early religion and is near to you; if they all went for the early econ techs, then you should be happy you didn't go for an early religion because you would be getting rushed by those with stronger economies

[Fleme]

I personally enjoy a religion early on. If I fail to get the first two I can usually manage my way to Monotheism (I'm a fan of ToA so Polytheism gets researched early) or alternatively go for CoL with the Oracle.

The goodness you get is obvious and for a builder such as myself it's much more reliable to have a religion of your own along with the shrine and all instead of attempting to capture one from your neighbors. Also, this way you get the bonuses earlier on and there's nothing wrong with the +1 you get just from having the religion, nor the +25% production (again, I'm a builder).

Personally I just find that things fall in to place when you get an early religion and the things that come along with it. With an early religion I can usually convert my closest neighbors and protect myself from the more warlike nations or atleast have an ally if the war should come my way. There are also some leaders such as Togugawa who I've never seen convert to anything else than the first religion that touches him and in my personal experience he's a lot more docile that way and will often offer himself as your vassal, without any actual wars. Rather have him as my lapdog than sending his stacks at me.

Now, I may have gotten carried away with this but the bototm line is: I like an early religion!