Civilization 6, the most recent title in the long-running historical strategy series, has recently announced a new season pass, introducing 6 new content packs. This announcement follows not long after the game was ported to consoles, and was also briefly available for free on the Epic Store, inviting new Civilization players to conquer the world through culture, diplomacy, science, war, or even religion.
While it may be tempting to leave religion to its passive spread, winning a religious victory in Civilization 6 needs to be approached with the same level of focus as winning through domination. To win through religion players will need to make their own faith the majority in every civilization on the map, and the best way to do that is through a pair of religious units: the Missionary and the Apostle.
Warriors of the Church
The cheaper of the two main religious units, the Missionary is also the first to become available. Able to be purchased in any city that has a pantheon, a majority religion, and a holy site with a shrine, the Missionary costs 100 faith to begin with and can spread the religion of the city it was bought in three times.
The Apostle, the Missionary's big brother, becomes available after a player has built a Temple (or equivalent) in one of their Holy Sites. Costing 400 Faith by default, an Apostle spawns with a promotion available, which players can pick from three (or from the entire list of nine for the Suzerain of the Yerevan City State). These promotions can drastically change the way an Apostle should be used, but the most valuable for a religious victory are Orator, which allows the Apostle to spread 2 extra times, and Translator, which triples the strength of the Apostle's spread in foreign cities.
The other two religious units are the defensive Inquisitor, useful for protecting cities from religious assault, and the support-orientated Guru, which most players don't find worth the faith cost. Of course, no religious victory can be won by Missionaries and Apostles alone, and each of Civilization 6's Leaders must be careful in their choice of religious wonders and beliefs as well.
Beliefs and Wonders
Each new religion in Civilization 6 starts with a Founder Belief, which only affects the religion's founder, and another Belief from either the Follower, Worship, or Enhancer categories. Later on in the game Apostles can be sacrificed to enhance the religion, filling in the missing categories until the religion has four Beliefs in total, one from each.
As a general rule, the best Beliefs for winning a religious victory are those that boost Missionaries and Apostles, making each one purchased more cost effective. As such, the Missionary Zeal Enhancer Belief, which allows religious units to ignore movement costs for terrain and features, and the Mosque Worship Building, which grants them 1 extra spread, are two of the best to pick up.
Finally, there are religious Wonders, unlocked through Science and Culture, and again the rule-of-thumb is to focus on those that give a boost to religious units. Some game-changers to look out for are the Hagia Sofia, offering bonus faith and extra spreads, the Mahabodi Temple, more bonus faith and 2 free Apostles, and Mont St Michel, which gives all Apostles the Martyr promotion for free.
Civilization 6Â is available for iOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
