Religious vs scientific

bungee_70 · July 21, 2002, 18:17

As I read the threads, I note that most people will be more seduced by a religious civ than scientific. Finishing my second game at regeant with an overwhelming success on world map with 16 civs, let me compare those two caracteristics.

First of all, I want to say that I got 3000 points at my last game, remembered as Xerxes the Great, at regeant. I dominated the game from beginning to end, but that is a bit because in America, there is not lot of challenge when you bottle up the central-americans ("Aztecs") early and you destroy the "Iroquois".

Let's get to the point: I say that scientific is much better than religious for lot of reasons:

-scientific gets cheap libraries which replace temples as culture booster. Moreover, libraries boosts also your science which is obviously an overwhelming advantage over temples.
You will say that you want to keep your citizens happy which is not the job of the library. I say that since the key to survive is expansion, I crank as much settlers/worker as I can so I keep my population low, happy, so there is no need for temples.
Plus, with big expansion, there is lot of luxuries, hopefully, that replace temples for preventing civil disorder.

-Religious makes anarchy last only one turn. But how often to you change gvt? I target democracy and when I get it, I stay for the rest of the game. That mean that I change for republic ASAP with a very short anarchy period, usually 1 turn because the civ is still small and then democracy with 3-6 turns of anarchy. Why are there any reason to change once in democray? I feel that only short aggressive wars are good because the longer you stay at war, the more ressource you drag in and the more you lay behind. I only do blitzkrieg wars carefully planned with finite objectives. Democracy is not a problem here.

That's it for the superiority of the library over the temple and that is also true for university/collesum and research labs/cathedral. When I decide to let my cities grow, I can afford pay more for happiness buildings.

The second thing I want to say is that considering Industrious as the best caracteristic, you get the Persians with scientific and Egyptian with religious. IMHO, Persians are clearly superior: with the retreat feature removed, Immortals are the best units in Ancient era. Moreover, they still have a place in Middle ages because they cost lest and are better than longbowmen for exemple. The war chariot without retreat is far less effective.

Finally, with Persians, you get Iron work faster and you are better placed for ressources war.

What do you think?

Harovan · July 21, 2002, 18:36

Hmmm, let's see...

Germans vs. Japanese - I prefer the Japanese
Germans vs. Aztecs - I prefer the Germans
Persians vs. Egyptians - tied
Iroquois vs. Russians - I prefer the Iroquois
Indians vs. Greeks - tied

Obviously I slightly prefer religious over scientific

NeoStar · July 21, 2002, 18:46

When you have a big empire with big cities anarchy can be catastrophic for a few turns - but it is only for a few turns. The rewards of keeping ahead in technology is more worthwhile like you've said.

I don't usually go scientific if playing only for domination, though. I change governments alot in that kind of game.

Theseus · July 21, 2002, 19:50

Retreat is not gone, it just now has a probability factor based on experience... which, in this discussion, means that the Immortals, while one of my favorite units, are not as relatively great as you point out.

Re Sci vs Rel, I guess the reason I lean toward Rel is that regardless of my traits, I'm gonna play catch up with the AI civs for a while, and then I'll take the tech lead. This seems to be true regardless, and there's nothing special about Sci that accelerates the crux point meaningfully. For instance, if somehow Sci ensured that I got to Cavs, or certain GWs, well before everyone else, then it would be much more valuable.

As to the value of Rel, heck, I'd by into it just to avoid anarchy. Government changes are usually possible JUST when some juicy GWs are being built.

Keep an eye out for the AU trial on techs... you'll like it.

alva · July 21, 2002, 21:27

Religous is far better then scientific
Reason: religious works throughout the game, scientific only becomes interesting from hmm librarys.
Wich is allready quite some turns into the game (some games are even decided by then)

bungee_70 · July 21, 2002, 22:40

I don't see how you can say that religious is there all game long and not scientific. For the building cost, it is equivalent. For govt change, I change less my gvt than I change Age! As I said, I go despotism->republic->democracy. Two change with the first usually taking only one turn.

Second, another said that retreat is not gone, maybe not, but I have just finished a game where I did NOT see one single unit retreat for all the game!!! I know like you that it is now supposed to be a probability and the higher the experience, the better the chances are, but as I said, I didn't see any unit retreating in all the game which finished with my space race victory (I was alone in the race, lol!). That may be a reason why I tend to say that Immortal is best.

I still maintain my point that Persia is the best combination of characteristic and UU of the game.

alva · July 22, 2002, 00:12

scientific isn't any good until librarys come around. And are build in some numbers .
Therefore the scientific treat isn't used throughout the whole game
. I'm not saying isn't doesn't have it advantages, but I do think religious is better.
In my next game I will probably go for scien/commercial just to do something different BTW

Aeson · July 22, 2002, 01:26

At the lower difficulty levels Scientific probably is better. Anarchy is short anyways, and you get 3 or 4 citizens born content, so Religious isn't a big deal. The free techs mean something because you can get to them first.

On higher difficulty levels Religious is much better though. 1 citizen born content means to get to size 4 you need a temple or luxury (with 2 garrison units). The pace of the game is much quicker, so any additional turns of anarchy set the player back. Plus research by the player is usually devalued, so Libraries don't play as big a part. The AI's will usually get the 'free' techs before the player, so they are devalued as well.

I'd say at Regent or Monarch the two traits are pretty well balanced, and UU and playstyle is the only real difference. Higher and Religious is clearly better, lower and Scientific is.

As for retreating... it's still huge. The chance is 50% for regulars, 58% for veterans, and 66% for elites. So better than half the time they should retreat when losing, unless the defender is down to 1hp. Immortals have a bit of an edge during the Ancient Era (on smaller maps where movement isn't as important), but once the Horsemen get upgraded to Knights the Horses take the advantage in all circumstances, not to mention when those Knights get upgraded to Cavalry, or if the civs UU is a Horse unit...

Until there is an upgrade path for Sword units, they just aren't as effective as Horses over the course of a game.

King of Rasslin · July 22, 2002, 01:38

Play a religious civ for a while and get used to the cheap temples. Then try to go back. You will see that religious is better than scientific.

Dimension · July 22, 2002, 17:24

Aeson's points are all valid, but playstyle is also a factor.

You said you don't change govenments much. Obviously, you don't have an aggressive warmongering style. If you can get by staying in Democracy, Religious loses half its appeal because you're not making use of dynamic government. The opposite end of the spectrum is even more true. You could spend the entire game fighting, going straight from Despotism to Monarchy, and spending the rest of the game in Monarchy. Even on harder difficulties, you could manage to play a mostly defensive game, and Scientific would be better if you managed to get a couple luxuries pretty early and didn't need those quick temples.

People see Religious as better overall because unless you are specifically trying to use a narrow playstyle, you will find yourself going through cycles of expansion, building/researching and fighting, making dynamic government quite valuable.

Sometimes I'll have tons of captured workers, and I'll just switch governments to pop-rush cathedrals and research facilities when they become available, then replace population with workers I don't need. That makes Religious better than Scientific even when it comes to building science, because everything is free.

Arrian · July 22, 2002, 17:38

Religious is much better than Scientific, IMO, though as Aeson pointed out, Scientific gets a boost on lower levels of play.

Even if you only switch goverment twice, that's roughly 8 turns of anarchy saved. That's a lot of turns. Keep in mind it's not just research you're doing... that's 8 turns of shields and gold too. If you make more use of the trait (say going despot -> monarchy -> republic -> democracy) it's even better.

The "free" techs aren't really important to me. The first one (middle ages) is either beaten out of the AI or gifted by the Great Library. No problemo there. The second one is nationalism. I often ignore it and beeline for replaceable parts, and later buy it for peanuts or beat it out of the AI. The fourth one... well, I haven't gotten to the modern age for a while.

As to the 1/2 price buildings, the scientific ones come later but are quite valueable. I won't argue that point. But I will say this: the early culture from cheap temples (at a point in the game where 30 shields is a LOT) really helps consolidate your borders and keep your people happy.

-Arrian

Jethro83 · July 22, 2002, 19:00

While Religious civs start with Ceremonial burial, meaning that their cheap temples can be built almost right away, a temple generates a culture of 2 when first built.

In the early stages of the game, I focus on expansion and military, at a point where I only have at the most size 4 towns. The extra boundaries created by temples therefore aren't all that important to my strategy.

Scientific civs start with Bronze Working, which isn't part of the path to be taken towards Literature, however, since libraries generate 3 culture, they are well worth the wait, since by that point I'll be wanting to start building up my culture anyway.

As for government, I usually make a smooth transition of Despot, Monarchy, Democracy, and I stick with Democracy the whole game. Religious cuts the amount of time this transition takes.

So I'd say that both traits are pretty much balanced, though I would take slightly higher preference to the Scientific trait, since I can build spearmen right away, and the cheap cultural improvement comes at the time I actually need it.

bungee_70 · July 22, 2002, 22:56

Your arguments are getting better and I think it is all about higher difficulty levels. I'm going monarch next game on std random map. My last two games were regeant on World Map (Marla Singer?) huge with 16 civilizations. I am pretty sure it is more difficult to play against 15 AI's that trade advances between each other than 7, so that will be a smooth transfer.
I'll try a religious civ, but I don't know what to choose because egyptian war chariots don't seduce me at all. What are your favorite religious civs? Iroquois?

alva · July 23, 2002, 00:26

The Egyptians are seen by many as the best civ.
You can use the charriot to "time" your golden age whenever you want/need it.
(I think this was first mentioned by Aeson, not certain though)

Aeson · July 23, 2002, 03:21

Wasn't me. I think early Golden Ages are just about always worth more than later. Not Aztec early though.

The Indians are the only Religious civ which doesn't stand out, and the changes to Commercial don't seem like enough to change that. Any of the others are good choices if used right.

player1 · July 23, 2002, 03:39

Relisious is better then Scientific, because happiness boot is better then science boost.

Of course if you play on lower diff. levels, Scientific is better.

But on higher levels, I realy have probelm when playing Civs without Religious trait.
(Religious trait addict?)

Arrian · July 23, 2002, 09:10

"Builder" - Egypt or Babylon
"Warmonger" - Japan or the Iroquois (not militaristic, but it's hard to argue with a stack of Mounted Warriors). The Aztecs are popular too, but like Aeson, I don't like the ultra-early GA.

Those are my suggestions (Babylon may be right for you, considering your love of Scientific).

-Arrian

Txurce · July 26, 2002, 01:33

If you don't mind an early GA, then Egypt doubles as a warmonger civ, since its war chariots are basically cheap horses when shields are in short supply. Coupled with its roadbuilding workers, they make for one aggressive early civ, if you choose to play them that way. (But they're also abuilder civ with a timed GA, which is why they're probably #1.)

Lord Merciless · July 26, 2002, 02:15

My rank of Civ Traits:

1. Industrious: I think the time saved by fast workers can't be appreciated enough.

1. Religious: I rank Religious just as good as Industrious. Cheap temples and no Anarchy are extremely valuable.

3. Militaristic: Warmongering is the basic strategy to win at high difficulty levels. With wars come the GLs, slave workers, cities, and a weakened enemy. The cheap barracks and abundance of Elite units are often underappreciated.

4. Scientific: Three cheap buildings are nice, but they come in appearance way too late in the game. Three free techs are also great, but pale in comparison if you can easily blackmail 5 techs from just one frightened AI Civ at a single peace treaty negotiation.

5. Expantionist: Only valuable on large+ maps.

6. Commercial: It's broken. I'm waiting for PTW to give it a try.

=> Egyptians should be the strongest Civ overall, followed by Chinese, Japanese, and Aztecs as next. Persians and Babylonians are not bad either.
Greeks and English suffer to due the Commercial trait.

Dimension · July 28, 2002, 10:58

I'm surprised more people don't like China. Everybody seems to agree that warmongering is the way to go on harder difficulties, and China's UU is by far my favorite in the game -- a 3-move unit that comes long before Cavalry. If you're playing China, Religious isn't worth much, because your only government switch will probably be Despotism -> Monarchy. By the time you get Democracy, you'll be to busy killing everybody with Riders. Cheap temples are always great, but since China is Industrious, it's not hard to get roads on a couple luxuries fast.

Obviously you can evaluate civ traits on a basis of overall worth, since it would be next to impossible to find a situation where Commercial was better than Industrious. That said, any analysis of depth is inherently flawed if you're not considering playstyle, difficulty level, and the overall synergy of the civilizations. Monkspider started a nice thread about trait combinations:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=55811

To quote myself, if anything else is to be said about civ traits, it should probably be put into the context of playstyle with some sort of a relative scale, like:

Builder
0 - Industrious/Expansionist (America)
1 - Scientific/Industrious (Persia)
2 - Scientific/Religious (Babylon)
3 - Industrious/Religious (Egypt)
4 - Religious/Militaristic (Aztecs,Japan)
5 - Militaristic/Industrious (China)
6 - Militaristic/Expansionist (Zululand)
Warmonger

Then people could argue about what traits fit where. Arbitrary analysis isn't going to get you anywhere.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to point out that there are situations when neither Scientific nor Religious are the most desirable thing to have.

bungee_70 · July 28, 2002, 16:09

I'm now very advanced on a game with Egyptians to see how they work on monarch. The war chariot is valuable, but I find them not powerful enough. I'm however grateful to the retreat capability. I'm on a standard map, so I'm targeting a domination victory. I need to conquer only one other civ to win, but corruption is scaring me.
I wanted to know what are your tricks when you need to conquer half of the world, considering fast corruption growing as you drive to your goal?

Lord Merciless · July 28, 2002, 16:48

Quote:

Originally posted by bungee_70
I'm now very advanced on a game with Egyptians to see how they work on monarch. The war chariot is valuable, but I find them not powerful enough. I'm however grateful to the retreat capability. I'm on a standard map, so I'm targeting a domination victory. I need to conquer only one other civ to win, but corruption is scaring me.
I wanted to know what are your tricks when you need to conquer half of the world, considering fast corruption growing as you drive to your goal?

Cross continent invasions are always tricky. You need a very large initial force and to establish a foothold on that continent. If your own civ is very strong in culture(more than 1/2 of yours), don't even bother to capture their cities first, but raze them and bring your own settlers along. Also, you have to purchase initial city improvements anyway. Only after you have a firm hold on your enemy's continent and have a GL generated, can you think of rushing a new Palace.

bungee_70 · July 28, 2002, 16:52

It's on the same continent. I have a large border, too large to have a general offensive. Anyway, I know how to attack, it's just the fact of corruption which I suppose will hurt all my civ because I have a huge number of cities already.

Dimension · July 28, 2002, 16:58

You're looking for tricks for dealing with corruption?

There is very little I've seen people suggest other than basically "just deal with it." It really depends on how you're winning.

Space race:
I think most people going for a space race victory will keep their empire concentrated one one large continent or two smaller ones. You turn your empire into a research powerhouse and develop your core cities into major production centers. You will be using Democracy and your empire will not be massive, so corruption isn't a very big deal.

Cultural:
You need a larger empire than for space race, but still not a completely massive one, just a mid-sized one with every possible cultural improvment in every city. It's nice to keep wars going on a few fronts, getting leaders to rush wonders in your capital and try and get the 20,000 culture there for a faster win. As long as you don't over-expand, building all your culture-producing stuff isn't a problem, although corruption can be obnoxious.

Military:
You just raze every city, maybe keeping one on each continent to heal units. Corruption is a non-issue, because you don't need a large empire at all.

Domination:
Since you are basically winning by having a massive empire, there isn't any alternative other than having a massively corrupt empire. It doesn't need to be productive, though. It can be nice to have an airport in one city per continent for airlifting and connecting to the trade network, but you really shouldn't be worrying about developing distant cities, because they will never be productive unless you move your palace to a new continent, which just isn't a good idea in the late game because it will cripple at least part of your large core of productive cities. You just want to have a main production area around your palace and FP and don't worry about the other cities. On harder levels, you'll definitely want them connected to the trade network to get luxuries, but as long as they're not rioting, forget about them. If they're large, you'll have to starve them or build a marketplace and a couple other things. If you're religious, you definitely want to capture the Sistene Chapel early and rush Temples & Cathedrals. Religious civs are great for Domination wins because you can switch to Despotism and use population to rush things. Of course, pop rushing makes people unhappy, too, but it's worth it if you're on a hard difficulty and everybody's already unhappy, especially if you've got Sistene.

bungee_70 · July 28, 2002, 17:01

Thks, it answers my question. I guess I'll build a massive army while I'm still productive and slaughter him. Too bad for corruption.

sprucemoose3311 · July 31, 2002, 03:09

i think firaxis is evil cause they made France the best nation. Look at the UU, the techs they start with, and the combination of commercial and industrious.

your workers can fully develope 21 squares before a city reaches size 5.

Musketeer!

Masonry, alphabet...piramyds and straight line to republic and map (if i remember right)

and yaaa its france....

Arrian · July 31, 2002, 12:02

Well, the french workers can build all the roads, mines and irrigation that they want, but my horde of Japanese horsemen will take it all away from them long before they get to their silly musketeers. I fart in Joan's general direction.

-Arrian
(yeah, the AI tends to do well with France)

Lord Merciless · July 31, 2002, 19:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, the french workers can build all the roads, mines and irrigation that they want, but my horde of Japanese horsemen will take it all away from them long before they get to their silly musketeers. I fart in Joan's general direction.

-Arrian
(yeah, the AI tends to do well with France)

But who will be able to build faster and deploy troops to the front quicker? What would happen to your own roads and mines you spent twice as much time to build as the French?

What happens if Egyptians come knocking at your gates with horsemen that cost only 2/3 of yours?

King of Rasslin · July 31, 2002, 22:40

I will relax because they can't get to my cities. And if they could, forests can be built. They aren't too strong on the defence, either. Eygpt is great, but not great enough to stop me.

China would own them. In comparing industrious civs, I like China the most because of the best UU in the game, and they start with the warrior code tech that comes with archers from the start. Japan is also great, and my favorite civ overall.

And religious is the best, you know it.

Dimorier Maximus · August 1, 2002, 00:07

If you are debating this so hard, why not just pick the Babylonians? The Babylonians can crush Persia before Persia can even say the word Immortal. Plus, you get religious and scientific bonuses. That means you can get culture out the wazoo for cheaper than your opponents.

Sure, in the mid-game, those fast working workers are good because the non-industrious civs are getting bogged down, but the Babylonians are a great rush civilization and you should be able to pull ahead of the comp early on and stay there.