In my last game, I founded Hinduism and made it my state religion. Later on, I was in the middle of a war and running Theocracy. I generated a Great Prophet and noticed that no one had founded Islam yet, so I used it to give the beakers towards Divine Right and founded Islam a few turns later. I got a free missionary that I sent to my capital and he spread Islam there. I built some monasteries and sent out more missionaries and they were all able to spread Islam to my other cities.

I thought that Theocracy meant that no non-state religions could be spread and I know that when the AI is running it, my missionaries can't spread religion in their cities, but I am able to do it in my own cities. While this is nice, is this supposed to be allowed to happen or is it a bug?

Could very well be a bug, I have run into a similar situation found Judaism/Christanity. Maybe Therocracy means just the spread of religions from outside your borders i.e. other civs? :confused:

With me was the other way. I had one Islamic Missionary and one Taoist. Was running Theocracy and both failed to spread the religion on my cities. Loaded the save to one turn prior, changed civics to other than theocracy and both were able to spread religion.

But it could be just coincidence, since the missionary has a chance of not spreading religion.

Anyway, Theocracy seens to be working on my game.

Running Theocracy, I can always have the missionaries that I build spread religions in my cities. Foriegn spread of religion does not happen, and my missionaries can not spread their religion to another nation if they are running theocracy. This is true for cities that have no religion in them also.

It seems that it is a bug, or a misunderstanding of Theocracy and the no spread of non-state religion.

If I am Theocracy, I do not want any other religion spreading, in fact I would want to eliminate any religion in my country. <---not the way the game has implemented Theocracy.

I have not tested but I suspect that what Theocracy prevents is the spread of religion through the underlying influence of one city upon another, leaving missionaries to operate normally.

But I recognise that some of the experience being quoted may be against that interpretation.

I've tried to send missionaries to opponents running Theocracy (I had not paid attention to their civic switches). The missionaries cannot spread their belief in the theocracy's city; the button is simply not available ("grayed out", I believe).

So, you cannot use missionaries to spread a belief in an opponents city if he is running a theocracy, and you cannot loose missionaries by trying it, since they simply cannot make the attempt.

Thanks Purple Whisper, that makes that aspect clear.

I am running a Theocracy in my current game and have been sending missionaries to my own cities. However they are spreading religions that I founded.