Episode: 4490
Title: HPR4490: Playing Civilization V, Part 4
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4490/hpr4490.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-11-22 14:58:06

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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4,490.
PreFriday the 17th of October 2025, today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization V, Part
4.
It is part of the series' computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Ahukah and is about 11 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.
Hello, this is Ahukah, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio in another exciting episode
in our ongoing series on computer strategy games.
We're continuing with Civilization V, and the topic for today is faith and religion.
This is another area where Civ 5 has added depth over previous versions of Civ.
What it does is modify your situation by granting bonuses of various kinds.
Now there is no direct victory condition associated with religion in Civ 5, and that would
arrive in Civ 6.
There are 13 named religions in Civ 5, but they're just empty placeholders.
You can rename any of them as you wish.
I usually do just for convenience, so I can always remember which one is mine.
What gives each religion its distinctive meaning is the set of beliefs that you attach
to it.
Now the fuel for this is faith, which is something you generate in your empire in various ways.
The Celts have a unique ability to produce faith from the very first turn.
They get plus one faith in a city with an adjacent, unimproved forest tile.
So the Druids like forests, you know, and their starting bias will always put them in
a place to do that.
For everyone else, you need to take positive action to start generating faith.
The best way to get started is by building a shrine in your city, followed by a temple.
A shrine can be built once you discover pottery, a very early tech, and it has a maintenance
cost of one, and it will generate one faith per turn.
The temple becomes available once you discover philosophy, has a maintenance cost of two,
and generates two faith per turn.
The reason you want to generate faith is that you can spend it in a certain sense to create
a religion and add beliefs to it.
In addition, you can use faith to purchase great people, which can be very advantageous.
You can also get faith in other ways, some natural wonders generate faith, and if you
can get one in your empire, that is a big bonus.
Certain world wonders are also generators of faith, though they tend to come a bit later.
And meeting a religious city-state can grant you a faith bonus, and befriending them can
give you a per turn bonus of faith.
Now the first step is to found a pantheon.
In most games, every player will be able to found one unless they delay too long.
This would not be a good idea.
You want to found one as soon as you can for two reasons.
First, each of the pantheons theoretically available can only be chosen by one player.
So if you wait too long, there won't be as many good ones available.
Second, the cost of found a pantheon goes up by five faiths each time another player
finds one.
So the key is to start generating faith early.
The difference between one faith per turn and two faith per turn is huge in the early
game.
As to which pantheon you should choose, that can be dictated by circumstance.
If you have some desert tiles in your empire, desert folklore can be huge, and it gives
you plus one faith for each desert tile.
And that includes floodplains, think of the banks of the Nile.
They are basically irrigated desert.
And OACs.
Floodplains and OACs tiles are the ones you would want to work anyway because they are so
productive, and with this pantheon you can add plus one faith to the output for each one
you work.
But if you didn't have any of the right kind of tiles, this would make no sense.
And if you have a natural wonder in your empire, one with nature is fantastic.
Others like faith healers and goddess of protection will rarely pay off in any significant way.
Now religions, the next step once you have a pantheon is to found a religion.
And if you're going to do that, haste is again important, since the number of religions
allowed is always less than the number of players.
So in any game one or two players will be left out.
And you do lose something if you don't have a religion of your own, though you can get
a few benefits from adopting someone else's religion.
You can see how many religions can still be founded by mousing over the faith stat in
the main window.
If that goes to zero, you can give up on founding a religion and forget using a strategy
that relies on high-faith generation.
Now founding religion is an option when you generate your first great profit.
And that happens with a probability based on how much faith you have accumulated.
So if you started off strong in the faith department and kept it up, you will most likely
get a great profit in founder religion.
Starting a religion first means choosing a name and a symbol.
As mentioned, you don't need to go with the name that is there.
You can rename your religion.
You do need to choose one of the symbols, however.
You know, that's a piece of artwork that's built into the game.
Then you choose a founder belief.
This is a benefit that only you as the founder of the religion can benefit from.
Which one you pick depends again on circumstances and on the type of victory you plan to pursue.
For example, if you plan to pursue a diplomatic victory, you will want as many city state
allies as possible.
So the founder belief of papal primacy will be a big help.
And if you plan to pursue a science victory, you might prefer interfaith dialogue.
Among the catch, generating beliefs, ties is best in the long run.
So unless you're desperate for quick cash, choose that over church property and initiation rights.
Then you get to choose a follower belief.
This gives a benefit to each city that follows your religion.
And by that, we mean at least 51% of the people in the city are following that religion.
Regardless of where it is.
So if your religion spreads to another empire, they will get the benefit of follower beliefs.
Of course, you'll probably have most of your own cities following your religion.
So they will get this benefit.
But you know, it's just worth knowing that you're sharing the wealth with others.
Now, the reverse is also true.
So if one of your cities is converted to another religion, that city will get the follower belief of that religion.
And that means that if you never get your own religion, you can at least get some benefit
when one of your cities converts to another empire's religion.
A follower beliefs should also be chosen with an idea of circumstances and the victory type you're pursuing.
For instance, cathedrals not only let you purchase cathedrals with faith,
but also add plus one faith culture and happiness.
And they also give you a slot for a great work of art.
If you're going for a culture victory, this can be powerful.
Divine inspiration is good if you plan to build a lot of wonders.
And feed the world is just a good all-around belief.
Now, once you've found it a religion, you can get additional great prophets.
And one thing you can do with another great prophet is enhance your religion.
This will let you choose an enhancer belief and one added follower belief.
For enhancer beliefs, I would probably choose religious unity if you have a number of city states near to each other
since they will ramp up your followers and help put religious pressure on other empires.
If you're pursuing a science or a culture victory and are mostly defensive against other empires,
defender of the faith is a good pick.
If you decide to pursue the piety social policies,
adopting the reformation policy will let you add a reformation belief.
Charitable missions is very good if you're seeking a diplomatic victory.
Jesuit education is great for a science victory,
and sacred sites is good for a culture of victory.
But as always, consider your own circumstances when evaluating these beliefs.
In addition, if you are Byzantium,
you get one added bonus belief which can come from pantheon, founder, follower, or enhancer pool.
So that is very handy.
All in all, you can wind up with one pantheon benefit, one founder belief, two follower beliefs,
one enhancer belief, and one reformation belief for a total of six, or if you're Byzantium, seven.
Now, what about spending this?
Faith is a research that can be used to purchase buildings or units if you have chosen the right set of beliefs.
Faith can even be used to generate more faith.
If you have already enhanced your religion using a second great profit and then get a third or a fourth one,
you know, you can use them to create holy sites.
These yield plus six faith and can yield added culture or gold with the appropriate policies.
And once you reach the industrial era, faith can be used to purchase other great people if you've completed the appropriate policy tree.
Now, if you complete tradition, you can use faith to produce great engineers.
If you complete honor, you can use faith to produce great generals.
If you complete commerce, you can use faith to produce great merchants.
Exploration gives you great admirals.
Rationalism, great scientists, anesthetics, great writers, artists, and musicians.
Now, what are some of the strategic considerations here?
First of all, you can win this game without getting a religion.
It's just a little more difficult because of all the benefits you can get from a religion.
You can get a quick boost if you can be the one to build Stonehenge, since that yields five faith per turn.
Otherwise, research pottery and build a shrine to start the faith generation going.
If you make it your focus, it's not hard to do, but that is the problem.
You cannot, in all cases, make it your focus because there are other things you need to do.
You need to explore a lot early on.
So it's usual to build at least one and often two scout units as your first builds.
You want to find the ancient ruins, i.e. goody huts.
The nearby city-states, any natural wonders, nearby barbarians, and other players.
And if you do have nearby barbarians or nearby opponents, you may need to build a few military units.
And to get your city to grow, you need to build improvements on your tiles, and that requires building a worker unit or two.
And you'll want to settle two or three more cities, which means building settler units.
Balancing all these demands is the skill you need to be successful, and that is the essence of all of the 4x games.
So, with that, this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and is always encouraging you to support Free Software.
Bye-bye!
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