I was wondering if it is possible to get a Civ that has founded another Religion--Confuscianism--to convert to my state religion (Hinduism) if I kept adding my religion to his cities with my missionaries? I just dont want to waste the time and resources of training missionaries and sending them to his Civ if the chances of his converting are slim since he has founded another religion.

I tried using a Spi/Phi Civ this time and am very suprised at how fast I have been founding religions!! I have founded Hinduism first, but eventually founded Taoism, Islam, and Christianity as well!! This has never happened to me before, and Ive been trying to spread my religions all over the place because I have built the shrines for each one, hehe. I have been spreading Hinduism to his cities for the Gold, but, Im still not sure about getting the Mongols to actually convert to my first religion of Hinduism since they founded Confuscianism. Right now I have only the -2 for "Heathen Religion" against from him, and +2 from trades and open borders. Do you guys think he will convert to Hinduism as his state religion, or that its a slim chance because he has the holy city for the religion he founded? The option to ask him to convert is in red still, with the "we dont like you enough" as an option. So by making all of his cities Hindu, wont that eventually get him to convert?

Ive never played the Religious side of the game this much, so Im not sure how it all plays out down the road. I wanted to convert him because he is my nearest neighbor on a HUGE map, and wanted to focus on exploration and development if possible, not war. What do you guys think? Thank You!!

Yes, if Hiduism is sufficiently common in his cities compared to Confucianism, he will convert. And generally he will do so of his own accord, without you having to ask for it in diplomacy.

In 1.52 they have made it a bit more difficult. Sometimes it will need to convert all his cities to your religion, but even then you can't be assured of ultimate success because he will usually build some new (island) cities that you will not be aware of, and he will probably actively spread his religion to these cities (if he has built the shrine) in order to get the money.

Nonetheless it can be worth the trouble if you have the shrine of your state religion. If everything else fails, you will stay with the cash. Otherwise, I think it is just a loss of time - just build some army instead.

Sometimes the military approach is out of the question for forced conversions, but yes you can get another civ to switch. Get most of the cities onto your religion (it also helps if their religion hasn't completely spread to all of their cities, they'll see a bonus to whichever religion has more effect on their empire).

My best example is that I got Vicky to convert after spreading religion to a majority of her cities (a few more than she had spread her own religion to. Even then I had to bribe her to convert, but it was worth it in my game to gain the stronger ally. Unfortunately, I got lazy with my missionaries and didn't finish the task of converting ALL her cities and so once her religion had spread throughout her empire she switched back.

Well I haven't got a civ to convert from their founded religion, but I have been able to prevent it, founded confucianism as the Mongols, spread it to my neighbors the Japanese and Romans., the Romans founded Christianity, but due to my aggressive missionizing, they haven't converted, partially because only a few cities have it.

Wheter or not a Founded religion is chosen as official may have to do not only with that religion inside the civ, but also Outside the civ (since if you Founded that religion, you get LOS when it is your official, and you can also make it your official to encourage it to spread in other civs by Their making it official getting you more money)

Thanks so much for your replies guys, they helped me alot and I appreciate it!!

Im going to try to convert him, but now Ive run into something else that I wasnt aware of (Like I said Ive never really played around with the Religious aspect of Civ4 so far in the short time Ive had it): Why can I only build 4 Hindu Missionaries?? Im not sure how to spread that religion now, once I have used up the 4 of them....and since I have founded other religions, it seems like those are the ones that spread now instead of my state religion...its making me crazy :crazyeye: rofl!

I figured I would use the remaining 3 Missionaries I have left to put Hindu into his largest cities, that maybe by putting them into his biggest and most important cities it might help convert him. But since I only have 3 Hindu missionaries left, and my other founded religions (non-state) seem to be the ones spreading.....how else do you spread Hinduism once you use up the 4 missionaries? And is there any other way to be able to make more Hindu missionaries??

Thanks again for all your help guys!! :goodjob:

You can only have a limited number at a time. Once you've used the ones you have, you can build more.

Thank you very much Beamup!! Thats awesome---I will have them all eating spicy food and watching Bollywood films by midnight :p lol thanks again!!

In theory it is possible, in practice only rarely. Very rarly. If you are very very agressive with your missionaries and they are pussycats. And you bribe them to switch, basically.

I got Bismark to abandon Judaism (which he founded) for Buddhism in my last game (Monarch/huge/marathon). All of his neighbors were Buddhists, all of his cities were Buddhists, and we had a good relationship due to fighting side by side in some early wars (we eliminated the hindii together).

I too had 4 holy cities with shrines and in the industrial era I had an income of about 350 gold with my science set to 100%.

You guys rock---thanks for sharing your experiences! Using the advice from your posts and things you guys have used before, Khan actually converted to Hinduism before I even finished sending my missionaries, wooot! (hehehe) Now that his conversion is all settled, I am wondering how long it will take me to accomplish the same thing with the other cultures who are much more settled in their own religions that I or my ally have yet to encounter (we even have a defensive pact now).

I am playing on a Huge Archipelago map, and it takes alot longer for these things to happen because of the distances involved. One thing Im curious about though:

Can your religion spread to other Civs that you have not encountered yet? If you havent met that Civ yet, is there any possibility that when I do encounter them, they may have been affected by one of my founding religions? Of course this is assuming they have not encountered any of the other Civs that founded another religion, because of the Huge Archipelago map and that the most advanced ship I have seen from another Civ so far is the Caravel (1600AD).

What has your experience been, when first contacting other Civs were they ever already influenced by your founded religions?

I love this game!! :goodjob:

Religion follows trade routes, so you need Astronomy and sea route to the other continent before religion will spread.

If you don't want to wait that long, send some missionaries on Caravels. :)

Sometimes the religion will spread before formal contact.

The huge advantage to the religious wing of the game on the archepeligo maps is the cash and the diplo bonus'. Admitedly thats the advantegous on all maps, but with the distances involed the LOS granted by prosletizing (spelling?) the others can let you know who's about to launch the invasion fleet.

My advice is to not forgo building up an adequate military to defend yourself. Which is really easy to forget about if you concentrate to heavily on religion.

Also, make your first victums the heathens, bribe your brothers and sisters in faith to all declare war on the poor schlob. Then when the war is one convert all captured cities. It's possible to get enough money, 1 GPT per city on the map, from your holy shrine alone to run at 100% science and still make a decent profit, especially if you have multiple holy shrines for multi-religious $$$ collections.

This means in late era games you simply purchase a masive millitary expansion, and the beauty of the Islands maps is, it is sooooo much easier to land a superior stack near his capitol or major cities allowing you to cut the legs out from under him early on. It also makes keeping the cities easier to since they're already the same religion and there are typically already somewhat improved.

On a side note: your religious allies for some reason never seem to expect that same invasion force coming to their hometown until it's too late. Never underestimate the power of stabbing your ally in the back. :)

Youre right Dave, it started spreading to the English once I contacted them after researching Astronomy, which was very cool to see it start spreading so fast!

And thanks for the tips Crighton youre totally right that its easy to forget the military when focusing on the Great Person farms and the Religious sides....between the Big Picture pointing out how far behind I was in the military area, as well as my ally seeming to scope me out bigtime....Im not sure about religious/military allies not seeing an attack coming from an ally, but he sure seemed to be willing to stab me in the back when I barely had an army. I just changed to vassalism (sp?) and theocracy and started pumping out some military units to at least keep up with the AI! I have like a +15 relationship with my ally, but I was VERY weak militarily and he had ships watching me in almost every city and going up and down my coast---what I am pretty sure was him sizing me up since I was ripe for the killing at the time---despite our +15 relations. Since I have added just a few longbowman, calvary, and musketmen he backed off and started moving his ships out, exploring the seas and rest of the map instead. :goodjob:

Now I will just have to get the "heathens" to somehow like my Civ enough for them to allow the Open Borders deal...and begin my missionary invasion to try converting England from Bhuddist and Rome from Judaism over to Hinduism. The religious part of this game is amazing!! :D