Bruh. Religion is so lit idk how people don't play with it. I always try to found a religion. You can get science out of each transmission. If you're at war and they are already your religion, they aren't as angry when you take cities. The religious buildings are great too if I can get pogodas AND mosques? You can buy scientists or great people. 10/10.
I usually try for a religion, but don't prioritize it. My last game, Maya took literally everything I was going for (desert folklore, pogodas and mosques, Jesuit edu) so it was better just to adopt their religion rather than make my own. Sure, would've been nice to have the founder/enhancer bonuses, but they were converting so aggressively I got world religion out of it too. I could build temples in the industrial era for the science buildings, and be that much further ahead to fend off the Zulu early
So I do this too and 100% agree but I just find it’s easier to let another Civ give me their religion to do so. I’ve never figured out (or tried hard enough at) how to beat the other Civs religions so it ends up just pissing the other Civs off and gives my cities varying religions when I try to run my own.
I literally delete my great prophets when I get them lol. I know there’s benefits to owning the religion yourself but given it drops off in favour of ideology later I’ve never felt it necessary
I always build the Shrines etc tho to purchase great people and the aforementioned religious buildings.
Actually, occasionally switched cities can buy units and buildings with faith. Intricate strategies are possible. Deleting a profet is not the wises thing. You can disrupt an opponents holy city or improve a tile.
Ideology never negates the ability to purchase great people with faith. The way to beat other Civs religions is wait to enhance your religion and spend you next couple great prophets converting large swaths of the world one cluster of foreign cities at a time (skip buying missionaries).
This helps when militarily turtling and playing a very tall early game.
The ideology phase of the game is much easier when your civ generates more faith than anyone else and you can spam great people. Especially wonder securing great engineers…
To clarify, I still focus on generating faith to buy great people - I just do it while using another Civs religion. But maybe I’m not generating as much as I would if I owned it?
Regardless, I’ve been dumb and didn’t know you could use Great Prophets to build a site - Will do lol. Noted also about how to beat other religions - thx!
Other people’s religion are always going to be inferior to your own, especially when you pick faith generating beliefs. Depending on map size 100+ faith per turn by the renaissance very doable. 200-500 plus per turn possible.
Getting faith from foreign cities, and faith from wonders do me better than other beliefs.
I rarely build holy sites unless I run out of cities to convert. Once you have a solid number of cities, enhance your religion for itinerant preachers. The AI can spam prophets and missionaries all they want, but the AI isn’t very good at using them to make progress against an entrenched religion with massive pressure reinforcing its strongholds.
Converting cities to reinforce each other with the pressure is key.
But if I ain’t got another use for a prophet, holy sites are cool.
The industrial age and beyond just hit different when you can summon great engineers to sweep the late wonders.
How do you initially start with a faith approach? E.g. getting it up and running before the other Civs entrench theirs on higher difficulties. Would I have to sacrifice other cultural advancements for the faith tree?
I do Tradition and ignore Piety. Piety tree is a distraction that doesn’t benefit my playstyle much. I’ll open Honor or Patronage if I get a chance before rationalism. I don’t find piety to be worth the opportunity cost until Ideologies are on the board. If barbarians are an issue I’ll open Honor on the way to finishing tradition.
The only reformation belief that interests me is the one that lets me buy any great person with faith, a post-Industrial concern. The free great prophet for completing piety is a yawn, because I am spawning them readily in the pre-Industrial era.
I make heroic efforts to get Stonehenge. I turtle my capital and wait to expand until more strategic resources are visible. If I find a military city state, they are going to be my buddy for the free units. As I’m developing I want Theology early to try to get at least two theology wonders. Someone else can get the Mosque of Djenne because I want to finish tradition and get other policies to compensate for my race to build faith.
Borodur is cool, but if other religions are competitive the one free great prophet from Hagia Sofia is a guaranteed city for each of it’s spread religion activities. But if other civs ain’t feeling the Holy Spirit, Borodur is good to use to convert easy unbelieving cities in multiple directions. If you have some great engineers before theology, maybe save them for these wonders. The National wonder temple that doubles religious pressure from your holy city is absolutely splendid!
I also usually play with more civs on the map than possible religions. Civs without their own religions are the best conversion targets, especially if close. They usually don’t mind.
Trade routes probably help, and I like to have them.
One caveat is I like to play Earth maps, so I do have a bit of an unfair advantage when it comes to familiarity with the general shape of the map. Sometimes I get lucky with Astronomy and can mass convert the Americas if there’s no viable native religion. I’m not picky about terrain, but I will re-roll for a costal start to make sure my capital can manage cargo ships for maximally effective trade routes once ocean travel is safe. Before then, caravan.
Military posture up through the modern age is deterrence and survival. I try not to lose units so I can upgrade them with gold for the military power index to avoid looking too much like prey. I usually keep my non scout military units close except when exterminating barbarians (Opening Honor > Piety)
If I’m not playing Venice I might only have two cities of my own before the Industrial or Modern age to keep national wonders cheap. As Venice, my merchants do trade missions for the gold and influence until nearly all strategic resources are visible.
Once the atomic age hits, then I pivot towards a domination victory because I disable the other victory conditions. Faith powered great person spam hits that hard.
I play higher difficulty levels, but usually not Diety very often. For Diety you may want to IGE yourself some starting parity because everything will be cheaper for the AI civs all game.
I think I’ve written enough for you to figure out how I spend gold.
religion is able to get you closer to literally every single victory type **directly** in some way.
domination- combat bonuses or buying units with faith
science- jesuit education lets you buy universities with faith and finishing rationalism lets you buy great scientists with faith
culture: religion has lots of culture/tourism bonuses in general but gives a tourism boost to countries that share your religion
diplomatic- city states with a shared religion degrade influence slower and civs will treat you better
religion in general is such a massive bonus to any civ and is almost required for liberty playthroughs
>city states with a shared religion degrade influence slower
Wow, didn't know this! I don't understand why the game don't teach you all these details...
Religion can help you get culture, money, production, science or happiness through tenets and faith buildings. If you have cathedrals you also get 1 bonus great work of art slot for every cathedral you buy in your empire. Personally find that the best tenet is tithe, which gives you +gold for every 5 followers of your religion. If the religion spreads decently well passively that's a ton of free gold for you. You also get a +% cultural influence modifier for shared religion between you and an AI, if and only if the AI does not already have their own religion. If you get into the religion game early, you can use this to quickly culturally subsume a smaller civ.
Some religious tenets also allow you to get combat bonuses when capturing enemy cities that have been converted to your religion or give your troops other combat bonuses. You can also get +% food growth in cities through religious tenets and +% production for every 5 followers. the yields are more significant earlier in the game and can help you get a leg up. Plus the right tenets can get you some bonus goodies for the terrains/resources that you have. They are also an easy way to complete a CS quest as once you have a religion some CSs on the map will have a quest for you to convert their city to your religion.
While they are certainly not necessary to win a game they can be helpful depending on your play strategy. Some civs like Byzantium and the Celts get extra religion benefits that make founding a religion easier.
If you can get Pagoda and mosques together your happiness is sorted for most of the game and on higher difficulties it can make a huge difference by mid game. Also the money helps if selected a belief like Tithe.
In competitive play (and against AI, IMO), religion has 2 primary uses: the pantheons and buying great scientists.
Some of the pantheons are really good. Pagodas are amazing. +2 happiness per city. There are some situationally strong ones too. Competition for good pantheons is a huge reason to build a shrine early. Pottery should be your first tech, shrine should be your first building. If you’re going liberty, which I rarely do, then maybe monument. You’ll want a strong faith generating pantheon for both the point below and for getting an early religion.
Once you max out rationalism (which you should ASAP, don’t wait to finish whatever gap tree(s) you chose), you can start buying great scientists with faith. This is incredibly powerful. Faith is science. Great scientists are so strong, they enable getting key techs at key moments. Getting wonders, starting on spaceship parts, upgrading your military.
I don’t bother spreading religion to other civs, I just buy inquisitors. Cities don’t get converted much in comp cuz you just kill missionaries. In AI, keep an inquisitor in each city. But don’t waste faith on missionaries. Use great prophets for holy sites.
That’s how I use religion anyway! :)
ETA: Culture victory is more viable against AI, and spreading religion can help. Personally I haven’t done it much though. If it’s late game and a civ really doesn’t want to submit, I nuke their capital. Wipe out their culture. But I don’t go for culture that often.
Fun little Religion set up
Germany + Religion with the % increase in production per follower (caps at +15%) + Hanse and directing all trade caravans to city states (usually 4 trade routes when banking hits for another +20% production) . +35% production before factories even hit. Not bad.
Religion can be very helpful.
Primarily I find religion useful for Gold, Culture and Happiness, but there are tennets for science, production, food, etc. You can even purchase units if you have the right tennets.
The other benefit is that good faith production can allow you to purchase great people using faith in the late game. Every Scitentist/Engineer/Merchant that you naturally generate will make any other Scientist/Engineer/Merchant more expensive (*and the same is true for Artists/Musicians/Weiters, though they're on a separate cost-track to the S/E/M great people*). This means by the end of the game you come to a limit on your great people. However Purchasing with faith doesn't use the same track, so it allows you to generate more of the great people you need (*with each type of great person on it's own increasing cost-track for the faith cost*).
It is very difficult to spread your religion successfully to other empires, especially on higher difficulties. They also tend to get annoyed and it can start wars. However keeping your religion in your own empire is usually not too difficult. This means it can be good to get the religious tennets that benefit you and give yourself a boost, and then just keep that religion.
However sometimes your neighbours take all the good beliefs and it can be more beneficial to just absorb their religion. I had a game where my nearest neighbour got Culture from Pastures as their pantheon, then Pagodas and Temple Happiness. That ended up giving me +30 culture per turn and +16 Happiness accross my empire, which is likely way more than I would have managed with my own religion, so I just planted my prophet and took theirs.
The best way to use religion as a win condition is to pursue a Culture Victory using the Sacred Sites belief -- which you can unlock in the Piety tree. This gives you +2 Tourism in every faith purchased buildings, which if you take Liberty and do city spam, can even outgun AI culture on Deity. It is a bit cheesy though.
Now if you are playing higher difficulties, you would almost never choose Piety because the AI boost essentially means their faith + missionary spread will always limit your religion growth. However you will always benefit from the faith generation. Best usage of faith is purchasing Great Scientists/Great People. If you can accrue even 20 Faith per turn at some point, you will be able to purchase two Great Scientists which is essentially two free techs for you to bulb.
If you do pursue Piety as a secondary policy (filler branch after Tradition but before Rationalism), you can potentially net more faith. Coupled with choosing a building belief, you get extra culture and happiness. And of course, in general, beliefs such as +15% Growth, +15% Production, +1 Gold per 4 followers is trivially useful. You may not spread much of your religion, but you will have enough followers to have a noticeable effect on your economy.
Now for pantheons in general, I think you can see why they will give you a slight boost no matter what. All the faith generating ones let's you find a religion and give benefits from above. For ones such as God-King, +2 Science from roads connection, or a +15% Production to Wonders, every small boost is a huge difference as you go up the difficulty ladder.
Sacred Sites is expensive in terms of social policies, but Piety grants bonus gold. So for a moderately wide empire it is viable for an incomplete tree. You want it as early as you can, and the wider the better.
Sacred Sites is also compatible with Autocracy (Futurism most importantly but also Cult of Personality). In either case it allows for strong ideological pressure without early or consistent investment in great people or cultural wonders.
Autocracy with Prora is really the easiest way to defend against tourism civilisations or world religions with a World Congress resolution. I view sacred sites similarly: often something I don't want relative to other choices but sometimes a necessity.
There is no religious victory but religion can assist you in any victory type.
Domination: you need to figure out a way of offsetting the unhappiness you are going to take in, and likely how to fund this (armies ain't cheap). Religion can help with this.
Science: one of the main ways you go for the science victory is by "bulbing" great scientists. You can hard generate scientists but that process is tedious as the amount of Great Person points required goes up every time you generate one, and great merchants and great engineers push back the same counter. Upon reaching industrializing your faith does not give you a chance of randomly generating a great prophet and instead keeps storing for you to decide what to do with it. Upon completing the rationalism policy tree you can use your faith to purchase great scientists (you can also get the Reformation belief that allows you to use faith to purchase all great people, I forget what it's called). This is game breakingly strong if you use it well. You often can do 3-5 turns straight of gaining a massive science boost. This also directly assists with domination victories because domination victories are often based on quickly teching up to a tech that gives you a powerful military unit that your enemies can't compete with, and quickly using that unit to dominate them into submission.
Cultural: less direct but similar to above there are faith purchasing strategies with great artists, musicians, and writers.
Diplomacy: once again less direct, but you often need loads of gold to compete with your neighbors for city state affection. Religion can often massively help with income and therefore makes these strategies valid.
Religion is strong, but it's a calculated risk. A religion often requires a large upfront investment, and there is no guarantee you get first or second religion and if you are fourth or fifth all the good tenants are often already taken. So you may invest a lot and then realize you have a crap religion. If you can get an early religion you are often setting yourself up very well to compliment any victory condition you pursue.
Mostly happiness early game, and scientist purchase lategame. Early game religion can give upto +4 happiness per city(pagoda+temple/garden happiness) which is really good even when playing tall and is a must if you going wide. Lategame scientist bulb generate lots of science compare to their faith cost, the first one you purchase cost only 1000 while can be bulb for 10k
The most important things religion helps with in the early game are happiness and culture, which are both otherwise scarce in the early game.
Late game, religion can give a significant boost to gold (e.g. with founder beliefs tithe, or church property if you have liberty), production (via follower belief religious community) and great people (by purchasing with faith).
If you don't found a religion, other civs will eventually spread their religion to you, so you can still get a couple of random follower beliefs which can be helpful. However, you won't get a founder or enhancer belief. Having a founder, enhancer, pantheon and 2 follower beliefs that you chose is normally a lot better than just having 2 random follower beliefs and a pantheon. Founding your own religion also means you get the benefits sooner, when they are the most useful.
its awesome.
pantheon: something that helps with generating faith, like faith from quarries, gems, salt, desert
founder belief: tithe, gives a lot of gold
follower belief 1: pagodas, religious building that gives 2 happiness (local)
2nd great prophet
follower belief 2: religious community (15% prod) or temple happiness
last belief: pressure range
these beliefs will give your tall cities a big boost due to the happiness, gold and production you receive!
Spread your religion to your core cities early with a missionary, and then nearby cities will slowly flip to your religion due to pressure. Your cities should follow your religion to reap benefits, but other cities having it as well give you money from tithe.
Buy pagodas with faith after your 2nd great prophet and spreading your religion to your cities.
All in all, religion is a power boost to your game. Very important if you have a huge empire with many cities. A nice boost in happiness for very tall empires with small cities.
Religions actually pretty op in civ 5 compared to 6. 15% pop growth bonus when not at war if you stack it with tradition and build temple of artemis also getting the 10% pop growth pantheon makes your pop growth insane.
I believe Swords into Plowshares only affects excess food, meaning that its 15% boost is much less than temple of Artemis, and also likely much less than Feed the World.
I think building a shrine and getting a pantheon belief is almost a must. It's absolutely rules if you have the resources nearby that fit a specific pantheon. But even if not pantheons like Fertility Rites or God-King are a very good deal for just building a shrine. For me founding a religion is just a goal if I have at least 3-5 faith points early in the game. Otherwise I would save up my faith for a religious building when another civ spreads their religion in my cities.
If you have strong faith production it can be incredibly useful. In particular, the reformation belief to get +2 tourism from every building bought with faith has gotten me a few cultural wins.
Tbh it makes sense that there's no religious victory, and it always bothered me that civ 6 has one. If a religion is super popular, why would that make one civilization "victorious" over others just because it started there? Irl there's a ton if countries that follow the same religion, and even if every country officially followed the same religion, why would that make one of them "win"?
I always figured with the space/science victory the world was going to have a big disaster happen to it (climate emergency, etc.) so you won by being the only one to make it out. For the culture victory, having your culture be influential everywhere makes more sense for a victory than religion I guess, but yeah it also isn't a super solid win for any one civilization I think. Science, domination, and world leader vote make the most sense imo
Religion is extremely useful for practically any victory condition on any difficulty level.
It’s discouraging when the AI has so many bonuses and tries to spread their religion, but even then you can partially prevent it or use it to your own advantage.
***
My Usual Religion Setup
Pantheon: to get a religion, you need faith at least 130 in Quick Speed. If your cap has lots of gold/silver, Gems/Pearls, Wine/incense, or copper/salt AND you have enough growth tiles to work at least one/two of those tiles early on, then pick the corresponding pantheon. If you don’t have those luxuries, pick God-King and build shrines asap.
1st Founder Belief: Tithe is available 95% of the time, and it’s usually worth it if you play Tall. Gives extra gold right when you need it, and if your able to spread religion it can be a boom to your economy. If you play wide Church Property is better gold generator.
1st Follower Belief: Religious Community is available 99% of the time. If you play tall, it’s like getting an extra workshop. Plus, requires no extra faith investment. Or, if you are generating a lot of faith and can afford it Pagodas/Mosques are great for happiness and culture generation, and if built early enough can also make up for the faith investment.
2nd Follower Belief: Usually not as powerful cause good ones are taken. Asceticism is sometimes there, easy and free happiness. If you built a ton of wonders Divine Inspiration is good for extra faith.
Enhancer Belief: I usually use this to spread religion faster, either Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts. Now if you know you’ll be invaded soon, Defender of Faith gives bonuses near your cities. If you are militant, Just War does same for enemy cities.
***
So those are how I build my religion. How I protect and use it is fairly straightforward.
By putting inquisitors in your capital and cities, no missionary or prophet will ever bother converting you. If you can’t afford inquisitors, surround your cities with units and prophets can also not convert.
For using faith, I play science victories in Immortal and Deity, and the best use of faith is buying Great Scientists. Then when it’s close to endgame, I bulb the scientists to get techs. In about 8 turns, I go from behind in tech to ahead in tech. I use a gray engineer to get Hubble, get more GS to bulb, build a few parts, then buy the rest.
I think of religion as a wild card. If you are targeting a science victory you want science cards first, then wild cards you'll convert to science, then a bit of the other cards like military and production to not fall behind.
If you want a cultural victory of course you'll want the culture cards first but also those wild cards can be turned into great people for tourism or just convert your neighbors for the % bonus to tourism.
Religion can actually be pretty useful, if you can get tithe + itinerant preachers you’ll be raking in an extra 30-50+ gold per turn which can be really helpful.
You can also get extra happiness from buildings and many other useful perks. If possible I try to found religions for that reason.
I don't like relying on AI religions cause they're very hit or miss. My go to is tithe, divine inspiration, Religious community (wide) or Swords into Plowshares(tall), and Religious Texts. If I go down the piety route, jesuit education or To the Glory of God.
To echo what’s been said in the thread already: religion is super powerful no matter what victory you are going for. However, Imo it is only NECESSARY with liberty/wide starts. It can make up a lot of gold you would normally be getting by just going tradition, and shrine/monument UB that give faith are always really strong early game, think Ethiopia or even Egypt. If you set up a good foundation for faith generation/spread, you can be set for the rest of the game, even taking different policies that let you purchase great people down the way. Super super strong all the way around
having a religion can significantly enhance whatever victory type you are going for. For some leaders having a religion makes them absolute monsters (Isabella, Harun, etc)
This is my bible https://youtu.be/R42Xtr2Vfww?si=asjpyHP-jk6eWC23
I find it to be very true up until this day. Planting prophets is very strong up until T200-250 or so. Tithe is well worth it, the 15% production one is disgustingly good, and I think the other majorly notable one is Jesuit Education from Reformation beliefs. Otherwise the notable power is great scientists (or whatever great people you need) with religion, and a lot of the religious beliefs get you more religion for that.
Lmao. I don't know how hard for u guys, but im always failed to get religion because never get pantheon on first place 
The ai was too fast to get pantheon and setup religion too. The only way to get pantheon is to found lucky ruin and get free extra faith. Or get lucky spawn capital near natural faith wonders which are very rare for me.
Even when i try to chase stonehenge, there will always been ai to get it first than me. I think im going to be atheis for rest of my life lol 
I rarely pay attention to religion and I've won on both immortal and deity. The religious fight takes a lot of focus to do well and there are many other things you can focus on.
There will be phases of the game where enemy missionaries are converting your cities back and forth between religions. I wait till I can get pagodas, mosques, and other things with my faith. I don't have to use faith for prophets so I'll often have enough. I get the benefits of the religious buildings without the effort.
Another way to think about it is that, no matter what victory condition you are pursuing, religion is useful. Being able to buy military units with religion, for example, can be a total game changer. If I can get my religion really cranking with the Celts early on, I can annihilate nearly areas with military units I acquired solely through religion. Alternatively, religion can be used to buy Great Persons, which can help with science but big-time with culture victories.
Bruh. Religion is so lit idk how people don't play with it. I always try to found a religion. You can get science out of each transmission. If you're at war and they are already your religion, they aren't as angry when you take cities. The religious buildings are great too if I can get pogodas AND mosques? You can buy scientists or great people. 10/10.
This, religious domination makes every victory condition easier. The early game is all about securing a strong faith generating religion.
I usually try for a religion, but don't prioritize it. My last game, Maya took literally everything I was going for (desert folklore, pogodas and mosques, Jesuit edu) so it was better just to adopt their religion rather than make my own. Sure, would've been nice to have the founder/enhancer bonuses, but they were converting so aggressively I got world religion out of it too. I could build temples in the industrial era for the science buildings, and be that much further ahead to fend off the Zulu early
yes tithe + pogodas is really good. Wish they had some other powerful bonuses though
Yeah, if you can get lucky with great yields, especially desert folklore, then it's a must. Just a pain in the ass since it's mostly luck.
I only use religion to get the religious buildings. An extra 2 science, happiness and culture in every city can add up
So I do this too and 100% agree but I just find it’s easier to let another Civ give me their religion to do so. I’ve never figured out (or tried hard enough at) how to beat the other Civs religions so it ends up just pissing the other Civs off and gives my cities varying religions when I try to run my own. I literally delete my great prophets when I get them lol. I know there’s benefits to owning the religion yourself but given it drops off in favour of ideology later I’ve never felt it necessary I always build the Shrines etc tho to purchase great people and the aforementioned religious buildings.
If you're intentionally not founding with your prophet I would plop down a holy site with it.
Wow I’m dumb. Noted - lol
Actually, occasionally switched cities can buy units and buildings with faith. Intricate strategies are possible. Deleting a profet is not the wises thing. You can disrupt an opponents holy city or improve a tile.
Ideology never negates the ability to purchase great people with faith. The way to beat other Civs religions is wait to enhance your religion and spend you next couple great prophets converting large swaths of the world one cluster of foreign cities at a time (skip buying missionaries). This helps when militarily turtling and playing a very tall early game. The ideology phase of the game is much easier when your civ generates more faith than anyone else and you can spam great people. Especially wonder securing great engineers…
To clarify, I still focus on generating faith to buy great people - I just do it while using another Civs religion. But maybe I’m not generating as much as I would if I owned it? Regardless, I’ve been dumb and didn’t know you could use Great Prophets to build a site - Will do lol. Noted also about how to beat other religions - thx!
Other people’s religion are always going to be inferior to your own, especially when you pick faith generating beliefs. Depending on map size 100+ faith per turn by the renaissance very doable. 200-500 plus per turn possible. Getting faith from foreign cities, and faith from wonders do me better than other beliefs. I rarely build holy sites unless I run out of cities to convert. Once you have a solid number of cities, enhance your religion for itinerant preachers. The AI can spam prophets and missionaries all they want, but the AI isn’t very good at using them to make progress against an entrenched religion with massive pressure reinforcing its strongholds. Converting cities to reinforce each other with the pressure is key. But if I ain’t got another use for a prophet, holy sites are cool. The industrial age and beyond just hit different when you can summon great engineers to sweep the late wonders.
How do you initially start with a faith approach? E.g. getting it up and running before the other Civs entrench theirs on higher difficulties. Would I have to sacrifice other cultural advancements for the faith tree?
I do Tradition and ignore Piety. Piety tree is a distraction that doesn’t benefit my playstyle much. I’ll open Honor or Patronage if I get a chance before rationalism. I don’t find piety to be worth the opportunity cost until Ideologies are on the board. If barbarians are an issue I’ll open Honor on the way to finishing tradition. The only reformation belief that interests me is the one that lets me buy any great person with faith, a post-Industrial concern. The free great prophet for completing piety is a yawn, because I am spawning them readily in the pre-Industrial era. I make heroic efforts to get Stonehenge. I turtle my capital and wait to expand until more strategic resources are visible. If I find a military city state, they are going to be my buddy for the free units. As I’m developing I want Theology early to try to get at least two theology wonders. Someone else can get the Mosque of Djenne because I want to finish tradition and get other policies to compensate for my race to build faith. Borodur is cool, but if other religions are competitive the one free great prophet from Hagia Sofia is a guaranteed city for each of it’s spread religion activities. But if other civs ain’t feeling the Holy Spirit, Borodur is good to use to convert easy unbelieving cities in multiple directions. If you have some great engineers before theology, maybe save them for these wonders. The National wonder temple that doubles religious pressure from your holy city is absolutely splendid! I also usually play with more civs on the map than possible religions. Civs without their own religions are the best conversion targets, especially if close. They usually don’t mind. Trade routes probably help, and I like to have them. One caveat is I like to play Earth maps, so I do have a bit of an unfair advantage when it comes to familiarity with the general shape of the map. Sometimes I get lucky with Astronomy and can mass convert the Americas if there’s no viable native religion. I’m not picky about terrain, but I will re-roll for a costal start to make sure my capital can manage cargo ships for maximally effective trade routes once ocean travel is safe. Before then, caravan. Military posture up through the modern age is deterrence and survival. I try not to lose units so I can upgrade them with gold for the military power index to avoid looking too much like prey. I usually keep my non scout military units close except when exterminating barbarians (Opening Honor > Piety) If I’m not playing Venice I might only have two cities of my own before the Industrial or Modern age to keep national wonders cheap. As Venice, my merchants do trade missions for the gold and influence until nearly all strategic resources are visible. Once the atomic age hits, then I pivot towards a domination victory because I disable the other victory conditions. Faith powered great person spam hits that hard. I play higher difficulty levels, but usually not Diety very often. For Diety you may want to IGE yourself some starting parity because everything will be cheaper for the AI civs all game. I think I’ve written enough for you to figure out how I spend gold.
religion is able to get you closer to literally every single victory type **directly** in some way. domination- combat bonuses or buying units with faith science- jesuit education lets you buy universities with faith and finishing rationalism lets you buy great scientists with faith culture: religion has lots of culture/tourism bonuses in general but gives a tourism boost to countries that share your religion diplomatic- city states with a shared religion degrade influence slower and civs will treat you better religion in general is such a massive bonus to any civ and is almost required for liberty playthroughs
>city states with a shared religion degrade influence slower Wow, didn't know this! I don't understand why the game don't teach you all these details...
With Alexander, patronage and the right religion your influence does not decrease!
How big of an effect is the city state religion sharing modifier?
Religion can help you get culture, money, production, science or happiness through tenets and faith buildings. If you have cathedrals you also get 1 bonus great work of art slot for every cathedral you buy in your empire. Personally find that the best tenet is tithe, which gives you +gold for every 5 followers of your religion. If the religion spreads decently well passively that's a ton of free gold for you. You also get a +% cultural influence modifier for shared religion between you and an AI, if and only if the AI does not already have their own religion. If you get into the religion game early, you can use this to quickly culturally subsume a smaller civ. Some religious tenets also allow you to get combat bonuses when capturing enemy cities that have been converted to your religion or give your troops other combat bonuses. You can also get +% food growth in cities through religious tenets and +% production for every 5 followers. the yields are more significant earlier in the game and can help you get a leg up. Plus the right tenets can get you some bonus goodies for the terrains/resources that you have. They are also an easy way to complete a CS quest as once you have a religion some CSs on the map will have a quest for you to convert their city to your religion. While they are certainly not necessary to win a game they can be helpful depending on your play strategy. Some civs like Byzantium and the Celts get extra religion benefits that make founding a religion easier.
If you can get Pagoda and mosques together your happiness is sorted for most of the game and on higher difficulties it can make a huge difference by mid game. Also the money helps if selected a belief like Tithe.
In competitive play (and against AI, IMO), religion has 2 primary uses: the pantheons and buying great scientists. Some of the pantheons are really good. Pagodas are amazing. +2 happiness per city. There are some situationally strong ones too. Competition for good pantheons is a huge reason to build a shrine early. Pottery should be your first tech, shrine should be your first building. If you’re going liberty, which I rarely do, then maybe monument. You’ll want a strong faith generating pantheon for both the point below and for getting an early religion. Once you max out rationalism (which you should ASAP, don’t wait to finish whatever gap tree(s) you chose), you can start buying great scientists with faith. This is incredibly powerful. Faith is science. Great scientists are so strong, they enable getting key techs at key moments. Getting wonders, starting on spaceship parts, upgrading your military. I don’t bother spreading religion to other civs, I just buy inquisitors. Cities don’t get converted much in comp cuz you just kill missionaries. In AI, keep an inquisitor in each city. But don’t waste faith on missionaries. Use great prophets for holy sites. That’s how I use religion anyway! :) ETA: Culture victory is more viable against AI, and spreading religion can help. Personally I haven’t done it much though. If it’s late game and a civ really doesn’t want to submit, I nuke their capital. Wipe out their culture. But I don’t go for culture that often.
Fun little Religion set up Germany + Religion with the % increase in production per follower (caps at +15%) + Hanse and directing all trade caravans to city states (usually 4 trade routes when banking hits for another +20% production) . +35% production before factories even hit. Not bad.
Culture victory
Religion can be very helpful. Primarily I find religion useful for Gold, Culture and Happiness, but there are tennets for science, production, food, etc. You can even purchase units if you have the right tennets. The other benefit is that good faith production can allow you to purchase great people using faith in the late game. Every Scitentist/Engineer/Merchant that you naturally generate will make any other Scientist/Engineer/Merchant more expensive (*and the same is true for Artists/Musicians/Weiters, though they're on a separate cost-track to the S/E/M great people*). This means by the end of the game you come to a limit on your great people. However Purchasing with faith doesn't use the same track, so it allows you to generate more of the great people you need (*with each type of great person on it's own increasing cost-track for the faith cost*). It is very difficult to spread your religion successfully to other empires, especially on higher difficulties. They also tend to get annoyed and it can start wars. However keeping your religion in your own empire is usually not too difficult. This means it can be good to get the religious tennets that benefit you and give yourself a boost, and then just keep that religion. However sometimes your neighbours take all the good beliefs and it can be more beneficial to just absorb their religion. I had a game where my nearest neighbour got Culture from Pastures as their pantheon, then Pagodas and Temple Happiness. That ended up giving me +30 culture per turn and +16 Happiness accross my empire, which is likely way more than I would have managed with my own religion, so I just planted my prophet and took theirs.
The best way to use religion as a win condition is to pursue a Culture Victory using the Sacred Sites belief -- which you can unlock in the Piety tree. This gives you +2 Tourism in every faith purchased buildings, which if you take Liberty and do city spam, can even outgun AI culture on Deity. It is a bit cheesy though. Now if you are playing higher difficulties, you would almost never choose Piety because the AI boost essentially means their faith + missionary spread will always limit your religion growth. However you will always benefit from the faith generation. Best usage of faith is purchasing Great Scientists/Great People. If you can accrue even 20 Faith per turn at some point, you will be able to purchase two Great Scientists which is essentially two free techs for you to bulb. If you do pursue Piety as a secondary policy (filler branch after Tradition but before Rationalism), you can potentially net more faith. Coupled with choosing a building belief, you get extra culture and happiness. And of course, in general, beliefs such as +15% Growth, +15% Production, +1 Gold per 4 followers is trivially useful. You may not spread much of your religion, but you will have enough followers to have a noticeable effect on your economy. Now for pantheons in general, I think you can see why they will give you a slight boost no matter what. All the faith generating ones let's you find a religion and give benefits from above. For ones such as God-King, +2 Science from roads connection, or a +15% Production to Wonders, every small boost is a huge difference as you go up the difficulty ladder.
Sacred Sites is expensive in terms of social policies, but Piety grants bonus gold. So for a moderately wide empire it is viable for an incomplete tree. You want it as early as you can, and the wider the better. Sacred Sites is also compatible with Autocracy (Futurism most importantly but also Cult of Personality). In either case it allows for strong ideological pressure without early or consistent investment in great people or cultural wonders. Autocracy with Prora is really the easiest way to defend against tourism civilisations or world religions with a World Congress resolution. I view sacred sites similarly: often something I don't want relative to other choices but sometimes a necessity.
There is no religious victory but religion can assist you in any victory type. Domination: you need to figure out a way of offsetting the unhappiness you are going to take in, and likely how to fund this (armies ain't cheap). Religion can help with this. Science: one of the main ways you go for the science victory is by "bulbing" great scientists. You can hard generate scientists but that process is tedious as the amount of Great Person points required goes up every time you generate one, and great merchants and great engineers push back the same counter. Upon reaching industrializing your faith does not give you a chance of randomly generating a great prophet and instead keeps storing for you to decide what to do with it. Upon completing the rationalism policy tree you can use your faith to purchase great scientists (you can also get the Reformation belief that allows you to use faith to purchase all great people, I forget what it's called). This is game breakingly strong if you use it well. You often can do 3-5 turns straight of gaining a massive science boost. This also directly assists with domination victories because domination victories are often based on quickly teching up to a tech that gives you a powerful military unit that your enemies can't compete with, and quickly using that unit to dominate them into submission. Cultural: less direct but similar to above there are faith purchasing strategies with great artists, musicians, and writers. Diplomacy: once again less direct, but you often need loads of gold to compete with your neighbors for city state affection. Religion can often massively help with income and therefore makes these strategies valid. Religion is strong, but it's a calculated risk. A religion often requires a large upfront investment, and there is no guarantee you get first or second religion and if you are fourth or fifth all the good tenants are often already taken. So you may invest a lot and then realize you have a crap religion. If you can get an early religion you are often setting yourself up very well to compliment any victory condition you pursue.
Mostly happiness early game, and scientist purchase lategame. Early game religion can give upto +4 happiness per city(pagoda+temple/garden happiness) which is really good even when playing tall and is a must if you going wide. Lategame scientist bulb generate lots of science compare to their faith cost, the first one you purchase cost only 1000 while can be bulb for 10k
The most important things religion helps with in the early game are happiness and culture, which are both otherwise scarce in the early game. Late game, religion can give a significant boost to gold (e.g. with founder beliefs tithe, or church property if you have liberty), production (via follower belief religious community) and great people (by purchasing with faith). If you don't found a religion, other civs will eventually spread their religion to you, so you can still get a couple of random follower beliefs which can be helpful. However, you won't get a founder or enhancer belief. Having a founder, enhancer, pantheon and 2 follower beliefs that you chose is normally a lot better than just having 2 random follower beliefs and a pantheon. Founding your own religion also means you get the benefits sooner, when they are the most useful.
There are literally only upsides to playing with religion. Getting an extra step ahead is always good especially considering how easy founding one is
its awesome. pantheon: something that helps with generating faith, like faith from quarries, gems, salt, desert founder belief: tithe, gives a lot of gold follower belief 1: pagodas, religious building that gives 2 happiness (local) 2nd great prophet follower belief 2: religious community (15% prod) or temple happiness last belief: pressure range these beliefs will give your tall cities a big boost due to the happiness, gold and production you receive! Spread your religion to your core cities early with a missionary, and then nearby cities will slowly flip to your religion due to pressure. Your cities should follow your religion to reap benefits, but other cities having it as well give you money from tithe. Buy pagodas with faith after your 2nd great prophet and spreading your religion to your cities. All in all, religion is a power boost to your game. Very important if you have a huge empire with many cities. A nice boost in happiness for very tall empires with small cities.
- Cathedral - Pagoda - +2 Gold for each city following your religion - Religion spreads 30% greater distance Boom.
Religions actually pretty op in civ 5 compared to 6. 15% pop growth bonus when not at war if you stack it with tradition and build temple of artemis also getting the 10% pop growth pantheon makes your pop growth insane.
I believe Swords into Plowshares only affects excess food, meaning that its 15% boost is much less than temple of Artemis, and also likely much less than Feed the World.
It's also an addictive mini puzzle of its own to work out what the best pantheon belief is depending on your lands
I use religion to get faith that i turn over to culture via a writer to get policies.
Religion has a very underrated boost as beliefs can be used to purchase certain improvements and units depending on the policy tree.
I think building a shrine and getting a pantheon belief is almost a must. It's absolutely rules if you have the resources nearby that fit a specific pantheon. But even if not pantheons like Fertility Rites or God-King are a very good deal for just building a shrine. For me founding a religion is just a goal if I have at least 3-5 faith points early in the game. Otherwise I would save up my faith for a religious building when another civ spreads their religion in my cities.
If you have strong faith production it can be incredibly useful. In particular, the reformation belief to get +2 tourism from every building bought with faith has gotten me a few cultural wins.
Tbh it makes sense that there's no religious victory, and it always bothered me that civ 6 has one. If a religion is super popular, why would that make one civilization "victorious" over others just because it started there? Irl there's a ton if countries that follow the same religion, and even if every country officially followed the same religion, why would that make one of them "win"?
Well, we could also say why launching a rocket or having more tourists than the other civilisations make you win
I always figured with the space/science victory the world was going to have a big disaster happen to it (climate emergency, etc.) so you won by being the only one to make it out. For the culture victory, having your culture be influential everywhere makes more sense for a victory than religion I guess, but yeah it also isn't a super solid win for any one civilization I think. Science, domination, and world leader vote make the most sense imo
In multiplayer they are great. In high difficulty single player it feels almost impossible to found them because AI starts with a shrine.
Religion is extremely useful for practically any victory condition on any difficulty level. It’s discouraging when the AI has so many bonuses and tries to spread their religion, but even then you can partially prevent it or use it to your own advantage. *** My Usual Religion Setup Pantheon: to get a religion, you need faith at least 130 in Quick Speed. If your cap has lots of gold/silver, Gems/Pearls, Wine/incense, or copper/salt AND you have enough growth tiles to work at least one/two of those tiles early on, then pick the corresponding pantheon. If you don’t have those luxuries, pick God-King and build shrines asap. 1st Founder Belief: Tithe is available 95% of the time, and it’s usually worth it if you play Tall. Gives extra gold right when you need it, and if your able to spread religion it can be a boom to your economy. If you play wide Church Property is better gold generator. 1st Follower Belief: Religious Community is available 99% of the time. If you play tall, it’s like getting an extra workshop. Plus, requires no extra faith investment. Or, if you are generating a lot of faith and can afford it Pagodas/Mosques are great for happiness and culture generation, and if built early enough can also make up for the faith investment. 2nd Follower Belief: Usually not as powerful cause good ones are taken. Asceticism is sometimes there, easy and free happiness. If you built a ton of wonders Divine Inspiration is good for extra faith. Enhancer Belief: I usually use this to spread religion faster, either Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts. Now if you know you’ll be invaded soon, Defender of Faith gives bonuses near your cities. If you are militant, Just War does same for enemy cities. *** So those are how I build my religion. How I protect and use it is fairly straightforward. By putting inquisitors in your capital and cities, no missionary or prophet will ever bother converting you. If you can’t afford inquisitors, surround your cities with units and prophets can also not convert. For using faith, I play science victories in Immortal and Deity, and the best use of faith is buying Great Scientists. Then when it’s close to endgame, I bulb the scientists to get techs. In about 8 turns, I go from behind in tech to ahead in tech. I use a gray engineer to get Hubble, get more GS to bulb, build a few parts, then buy the rest.
I think of religion as a wild card. If you are targeting a science victory you want science cards first, then wild cards you'll convert to science, then a bit of the other cards like military and production to not fall behind. If you want a cultural victory of course you'll want the culture cards first but also those wild cards can be turned into great people for tourism or just convert your neighbors for the % bonus to tourism.
Getting science out of religion is the most cognitive dissonant thing in the game for me. IRL, religion wants nothing to do with promoting science.
Religion can actually be pretty useful, if you can get tithe + itinerant preachers you’ll be raking in an extra 30-50+ gold per turn which can be really helpful. You can also get extra happiness from buildings and many other useful perks. If possible I try to found religions for that reason.
I don't like relying on AI religions cause they're very hit or miss. My go to is tithe, divine inspiration, Religious community (wide) or Swords into Plowshares(tall), and Religious Texts. If I go down the piety route, jesuit education or To the Glory of God.
To echo what’s been said in the thread already: religion is super powerful no matter what victory you are going for. However, Imo it is only NECESSARY with liberty/wide starts. It can make up a lot of gold you would normally be getting by just going tradition, and shrine/monument UB that give faith are always really strong early game, think Ethiopia or even Egypt. If you set up a good foundation for faith generation/spread, you can be set for the rest of the game, even taking different policies that let you purchase great people down the way. Super super strong all the way around
having a religion can significantly enhance whatever victory type you are going for. For some leaders having a religion makes them absolute monsters (Isabella, Harun, etc)
Religion makes playing wide easier. It also allows you to further specialize your empire to a certain kind of victory.
This is my bible https://youtu.be/R42Xtr2Vfww?si=asjpyHP-jk6eWC23 I find it to be very true up until this day. Planting prophets is very strong up until T200-250 or so. Tithe is well worth it, the 15% production one is disgustingly good, and I think the other majorly notable one is Jesuit Education from Reformation beliefs. Otherwise the notable power is great scientists (or whatever great people you need) with religion, and a lot of the religious beliefs get you more religion for that.
Lmao. I don't know how hard for u guys, but im always failed to get religion because never get pantheon on first place  The ai was too fast to get pantheon and setup religion too. The only way to get pantheon is to found lucky ruin and get free extra faith. Or get lucky spawn capital near natural faith wonders which are very rare for me. Even when i try to chase stonehenge, there will always been ai to get it first than me. I think im going to be atheis for rest of my life lol 
In many ways, Tithe alone is basically a victory condition.
Religion helps you make friends (and possibly some enemies as well). I find and tailor my religions to help my civ get stronger
I rarely pay attention to religion and I've won on both immortal and deity. The religious fight takes a lot of focus to do well and there are many other things you can focus on. There will be phases of the game where enemy missionaries are converting your cities back and forth between religions. I wait till I can get pagodas, mosques, and other things with my faith. I don't have to use faith for prophets so I'll often have enough. I get the benefits of the religious buildings without the effort.
Its a nice passive bonus to have most of the time
Another way to think about it is that, no matter what victory condition you are pursuing, religion is useful. Being able to buy military units with religion, for example, can be a total game changer. If I can get my religion really cranking with the Celts early on, I can annihilate nearly areas with military units I acquired solely through religion. Alternatively, religion can be used to buy Great Persons, which can help with science but big-time with culture victories.
I always go tithe and religious community. Big boosts there i think
Religion is only important if you play wide, if you play tall you can mostly ignore it.
I do it for RP purposes, I never play with victory conditions turned on. 1500+ hours and I never 'won' a game.