Religion Needs more Interesting Decisions and Less Micromanagement

[zinc bridge]

I have yet to play a game of Civ 7 where I've really engaged with the religion system. I hate micromanaging missionaries. Also, any real benefits you get are buried behind the scenes, so you don't have the satisfaction of really seeing the impact of leaning into religion. Some ideas to make things more interesting:

1. Add faith as a currency

• Unlocks in Exploration
• Similar to Civ 6 for generation & purchases, except:
  • Settlement has access to multiple faith buildings based on religions present
  • Religion-unique buildings provide faith back to founder
  • Can be used for special endeavors/sanctions

2. Convert population passively with pressure

• Similar to Civ 6 except:
  • "Religious population" & "Religion presence" are independent variables
  • Population = # of "believers"; presence = % distribution of religions among believers; followers = population * presence
  • Faith buildings/wonders replace holy sites
  • Towns/Cities generate different amounts of pressure (e.g. town specialization)
  • Civ's/settlement's "majority religion" is the one with the most followers (starts as "non-religious")
  • Once presence exists, will always have minor presence unless purged

3. Replace units/conversion with Envoy-like missionaries

• Missionaries get assigned to a settlement, like civ 6 envoys
• Time to establish based on distance from nearest religion presence
• Once established, generate pressure until reassigned/purged
• Multiple missionaries from multiple religions can be in the same settlement
• Use faith/diplo action to purge foreign missionaries/religions for relationship penalty

4. Add a separate theology tree

• Nodes unlock beliefs/policies/bonuses/buildings/wonders/units/missionaries
• Include benefits for not founding a religion
• Progress based on religious population
• Unlock counters/boosts for religious pressure (e.g., from science and/or influence buildings)

[low pewter]

Religion needs a complete overhaul. The current status of it is extremely boring. I usually rush to get Dawah trait so that I can easily get relics via trade. This way I never produce missionaries and I don't deal with micro. Since I can convert cities and generate relics via establishing trade routes, it automates religion for me.

[open oriole]

Yeah I basically just ignore religion. It doesn't really add meaningful choices or impacts

[pallid valley]

I agree that religion needs an overhaul, for several reasons. The 2 biggest issues are that it takes forever for me to keep track of which settlements I have sent a missionary to and that the Golden Age cultural legacy bonus from the Exploration Age (the one that lets you keep your religious founder beliefs) is such a powerful incentive to converting the world that it feels like I am losing out on a huge bonus if I ignore religion. So, these two things combine to make me feel compelled to do something I find extremely boring.

Some other problems I have with religion are that there is no interaction between missionaries and other units (there is no way to fight other religious units and there is no risk of your religious units being attacked) and once I reach about the halfway point of the Exploration Age, I am only producing missionaries, which is not fun. I'd much rather there be more powerful things (buildings, wonders, units, etc.) to produce in my cities later in the age, but as is the bank and hospital are not worth waiting for when I could be getting the benefit from the inn and guildhall much sooner in the age.

I want to make clear: this is a BIG sticking point for me, since I feel bad interacting with religion (because it's boring and time-consuming) but I also feel bad if I ignore religion (because I know I am losing out on a lot of yields in the Modern Age by ignoring it). It's at the point where I don't want to play the game anymore.