Religion

This is a major change from the previous versions of Civilization. In the earliest versions, Religion served as the “opiate of the masses”. Giving them Religion always made them happier. In Civ IV individual religions made an appearance, and you could start to have competition in this area. But the actual religions were pretty much the same. It was in Civ V that each religion started to take on individual characteristics that made it meaningful for you to found a religion. But while founding a religion could give you tangible bonuses, there was not a lot of competition between religions. This changed in Civilization VI. You can now win a victory by making your religion dominant over all other religions, and there are players in the game who if controlled by the AI will definitely pursue this strategy. And if you want to try it yourself, they are the players you should choose to be. It is a fun way to play this game, and very different from anything you have done before.

To begin with you have to start accumulating Faith. In the game, Faith is a resource that you can spend in certain ways, making it valuable. You can start by picking a Policy Card like the Economic card God King. This gives one Gold and one Faith in your Capital each turn. But saying it is “in your Capital” is somewhat misleading since both Gold and Faith are resources that accumulate in your Empire as a whole. This will be enough to get you to the first step on the road to Religion, which is to found a Pantheon. These show up early in the game, and in historical terms might represent the Gods and Religions of the Ancient City-States. They are somewhat primitive compared to the major World Religions like Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam. In the game they primarily give you terrain bonuses which are linked either to the underlying terrain or to terrain improvments like Farms and Mines, or adjacency bonuses. And what they offer is Faith, Culture, Production, and Food. And these will stay with you for the entire game. Even if your Religion gets wiped out, your Pantheon bonuses continue.

A good example of choosing a bonus is Peter the Great of Russia. Being Russia, there is a bias towards spawning near Tundra tiles, and while other Civs would consider Tundra tiles undesirable, Russia can do things with them. And the other thing about Russia is that it is one of those Civs that will always be biased towards a Religious victory. If Russia is in your game, be prepared to see masses of Russian Missionaries spreading out to convert every city they can. Well, once you understand this, you see that the pantheon Dance of the Aurora is a natural fit. It says that Holy Sites will get +1 Faith frm every adjacent Tundra tile. And if you are Russia, you will have Tundra tiles, and you will be building Holy Sites, so this is pretty straightforward. There are similar Pantheons that offer Faith for adjacent Desert tiles, or adjacent Jungle Tiles.

So choosing the right Pantheon can add to your accumulation of Faith, but there are other paths to consider. Certain Wonders can also be helpful here. Stonehenge, an Ancient Era Wonder, not only gives you two Faith per turn, but gives you a free Great Prophet when completed, and you cna use that Great Prophet to create a religion in Stonehenge itself, even if you don’t have a Holy Site. Another Wonder worth going for if you want more Faith is the Mahabodhi Temple. This is a Classical Era Wonder that gives +4 Faith per tuen, and gives you two free Apostles.

But to go further and to get a Religion you need to create at least one Holy Site. And if you want to seriously pursue a Religion victory you will want to create several Holy Sites. These are Specialty districts that you have to create. As mentioned above, some Pantheons give you adjacency bonuses to beef up your Faith production at Holy Sites. But you should also keep an eye out for Mountains, since each adjacent Mountain is always good for +1 Faith. And because Mountains usually are found in groups, it is often possible to place a Holy Site on a tile with 2 or 3 Mountains adjacent. And once you finish building the Holy Site it will add Faith per turn. But then you will want to develop the Holy Site further, This starts by adding a Shrine, the first Faith building available. And as you progres you can add a Temple, and then later one of a number of Worship Buildings depending on the Religion you have picked. These can be buildings like a Cathedral, a Mosque, or a Pagoda, to name a few.

Faith can be used to purchase Units, but to found a Religion you need a Great Prophet, and that requires accumulating Great Prophet Points. These are also generated by your Holy Sites, and once you have enough you may have a chance to recruit a Great Prophet and start your religion. I say “may have a chance” because by design the number religions in any game is always less than the number of players. So if your strategy absolutely requires getting a Religion, you had best not dawdle at it. Set down at least one Holy Site in one of your first two Cities and you will probably be fine.

Units

There are several Religious Units in Civ 6, and they are purchased with Faith as long as this is done in a city with both a Holy Site and a Majority religion. And when purchased they will be from the Majority religion of that city. If your city has a Majority Religion different from the one you founded, you don’t want to purchase units there. You should instead go to a different city that has a Holy Site and the correct Majority Religion, purchase units there, and use them to convert the first city back your Religion. And note that Apostles and Missionaries can ignore national boundaries. So you can send your Missionaries, etc. into any other player’s territory to try and convert people. The only defense against this is Theological Combat. Units you can purchase include:

• Apostles – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Temple, and Majority Religion. These have 3 charges for spreading religion, and they can initiate Theological Combat.
• Inquisitor – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Temple, and Majority Religion. Must have an Apostle in the Holy Site to convert into an Inquisitor. Has 3 charges to Remove Heresy.
• Missionary – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Shrine, and Majority Religion. The first and weakest Religious unit, it can defend (poorly) against Theological Combat, but not initiate it. They have three charges for Spreading Religion.

In addition, there were some other units added in Scenarios and later DLC, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Theological Combat

This follows many of the same rules as military combat. If you have an Apostle or Inquisitor, you can initiate combat by attempting to move your unit onto a tile occupied by a religious unit from another player. From here it is just a matter of comparing the religious strength of the two units, applying a random number, and assessing damage to each unit. So in this respect it is very analogous to regular combat. The one exception is that you cannot initiate Theological Combat against any religious unit that is in either a City Center or an Encampment. And both City Centers and Encampents exert Zones of Control over Religious units if you are at war with the player that owns them, and that reduces their movement. Normally such units have a movement of 4 per turn, which lets them move rapidly across the map. Terrain effects can also apply, such as requiring 3 movement points to cross a river. And of course religious units always exert Zones of Control against opposing units.

Terrain effects do not apply to Theological combat the way they do to Military Combat. You won’t get a defensive bonus from being on a Forest tile, for instance. But you do get a defensive bonus if you are in the territory of a city following your religion of +5. And if you are in the territory of the Holy City of your religion, the bonus is +15. When combat occurs, each unit can lose Hit Points, just as in Military Combat. And if a defending unit’s Hit Points fall to Zero, the unit is eliminated, and the attacking unit enters the tile, just as in Militry Combat. If the dying unit is an Apostle with the Martyr promotion, a Relic is created which can be displayed in an appropriate place and help generate Tourism.

Religious units suffer damage from Theological Combat just like Military Units do from Military Combat. But Military units can recover by just staying in one place anad healing. Religious units can only heal by standing on or adjacent to a Holy Site in your own territory. And the amount of hit points recovered is proportional to the Faith output of the Holy Site, so you will get better results from moving the damaged units to your top Holy Site in terms of Faith Output.

Finally, a general rule is that you should think of Theological Combat as occuring separate from Military Combat. Religious units cannot attack Military units, but if you are at war with another player you can use your Military units to attack their Religions units using the “Condemn Heretic” option. But otherwise Military and Religious units just ignore each other and can even be on the same tile.