Many Questions about Religion (Pressure Mechanics).

Ever since gods and kings, whether it's been worth the effort or not, I've been obsessed with founding a religion and spreading it across the world. I always tried to eradicate the other religions in an attempt to make one unified religion. When brave new world came out, I saw the much welcome boost to the system and of course I have fun ruling for the world religion in the new world congress. But the mechanics for religion seem to have changed a lot and there are a lot of fundamental things that I never understood even in gods and kings.

Just some information about me as a player, I have all the expansions and DLC and I typically play on king (although I need to bump it up once I overcome my unhealthy love for hording wonders) with 150 hours logged (which really isn't much lol... but now that BNW is out I'm playing a lot more and looking to improve!)

[If there are any good articles, guides or wikis that answer all my questions and more I'd love to know where to look, otherwise I'll post my questions here.]

1. The first major area of confusion for me is the Pressure. What determines the pressure of a city?

2. Faith generation... does that effect pressure? How do you build pressure? Is it based on the number of followers in a city?

3. At what point does a city start to exhibit pressure outwards? Is it when the city is converted to a religion?

4. If a city is a certain religion (majority), but has followers of another religion (and pressure from that religion) does that city give off pressure for only the majority religion or both?

5. I read in the Civiopidia (SP?) that a city needs to be within 10 tiles (13 with the belief) in order to feel the effects of pressure from a city. Now, does the distance effect the pressure? Are closer cities (5 tiles away) more likely to have higher pressure than cities that are 10 or 13 tiles away.

[By the way, I'm new enough to civilization that I'll ask a side question, how do you count tile distance if the city is not perfectly lined up with the diagonal hexs].

6. Now on similar topic, the holy city. What determines the outwards pressure of a holy city? When I build the wonder that doubles outwards pressure of the holy city, why does it seem like the pressure never actually doubles?

7. Can a religion actually be eradicated? Can a holy city of one religion be converted to another and permanently be kept from going back? [Now I've sent prophets in many times and temporarily switched religions of a capital, but they always seem to just maintain high pressure for that religion, is that the nature of the holy city, or is that surrounding cities still yet to be converted to the other religion?] Lets say a religion has 5 cities, the holy city in the middle. If I sent in two prophets and nearly simultaneously converted all 5 cities to a new religion. Would that old religion be gone forever?

8. If a city is experiencing, lets say, 40 pressure from religion A and 20 pressure from religion B. In the long run, if those pressures remain constant, are the followers going to be a balance of both religions? [66% following A, 33% following B] or is religion A eventually going to over take all the citizens?

9. What are the factors that determine missionary strength? Is it based on the pressure that a city is experiencing (higher pressure stronger effect?)

I think that is probably a good list to start with and I appreciate any expertise from the community here as like I mentioned before, I am always trying to get better at the game. I swear I learn new things every time I play! But now is the time to ask people who know more.

Thanks again,

KRX

Pressure:

Cities themselves create pressure, I believe the base distance is something like 13 tiles.
I.E. if Babylon has Rome, Arretium and Osaka in 10 tiles range and they all have Confucianism, Babylon is getting +6 pressure.
+2 pressure per city by default unless you have Religious Texts (which increases it by 25/50 percent).
When in a city the majority are of religion X, that city is considered of that religion and won't spread pressure of any other; still, if the other followers become the majority, city's religion willl flip.
You can press G to show the grid and count the tile distance.
Missionary strength is solely based on the belief that increases missionary strength I believe; I also think Inquisitor in garrisons make the city in question immune to conversion, IIRC.


Basically, there are 3 ways to spread religion:
1) Using Prophets and Missionary's ability. After your first 2 Great Prophets are used (found and enhance religion), the next ones should be converting your cities first, then enemy cities.
2) Religious Texts. Even though it's nerfed, it's still very potent. Basically cities instead of going 2 pressure each, they do 25% more (50% more after the printing press is researched).
This takes a while to pile up, but then you'll have something like +10 to +18 pressure in each city and your religion will be flipping every city.
3) Itinerant Preachers. This belief increases the tiles a religion can spread its pressure to.
This means that if you have high city density you'll generate a lot of pressure.
This belief is only better than Texts if you have high city density and mainly land map, else Texts is better (since it also affects trade route pressure).


Holy cities will begin again spreading their original religion after a while unless you use an Inquisitor.
It's very important that when you conquer a capital that created a religion, you use an Inquisitor on it to delete said religion, else it will keep coming back.


Did I answer all your points?

1. each city exerts its majority religion pressure on nearby cities (but not on itself. except for a holy city which pressures itself with quite a big pressure, dont remember exact number), standard map/speed=6 pressure pert turn. pressure from different cities but same religion adds up e.g. you have 3 cities nearby, 2 of which were converted to religion, and the third is non-religious, two religious cities exert 12 pressure on the third city and 6 pressure on each other. if the third city becomes religious, each of 3 will get 12 pressure from other two.

2. pressure does not depend on faith generation

3. yes, a city starts to pressure once its converted

4. city only exerts a majority religion pressure

5. pressure does not fall with distance

6. outwards pressure of the holy city is the same to an ordinary converted city
grand temple definitely doubles pressure. (6->12)

7. religion cant go forever afaik, unless you outpressure it completely. though your pressure can be easily removed by an inquisitor or prophet. you can make it harder by adopting the Unity of the Prophets reformation belief.

8. yes you're right. in the long run follower numbers will get to pressures proportion. but it can take forever if one of religions has too many pressure accumulated there. so you will never convert that city without the use of inq/proph

9. missionary strength is always the same (1000 at standard speed) but can be increased by missionary zeal belief.

Have you read the religion articles in the War Academy? Many, if not all, of your questions are addressed (BNW updates are in process, but won't be posted for a while).

On specific items:

Falconiano said:

Pressure:

Cities themselves create pressure, I believe the base distance is something like 13 tiles.
I.E. if Babylon has Rome, Arretium and Osaka in 10 tiles range and they all have Confucianism, Babylon is getting +6 pressure.
+2 pressure per city by default unless you have Religious Texts (which increases it by 25/50 percent).
When in a city the majority are of religion X, that city is considered of that religion and won't spread pressure of any other; still, if the other followers become the majority, city's religion willl flip.
You can press G to show the grid and count the tile distance.

Click to expand...

10 tiles is base range (13 with Itinerant Preachers). City pressure is 6 per city at Standard (Falconiano gave Marathon pressure throughout his response, so you have to adjust his specific numbers for Quick, Standard and Epic).

I also think Inquisitor in garrisons make the city in question immune to conversion, IIRC.

Click to expand...

Inquisitors do nothing to combat pressure-based conversions; they only deter Great Prophets and Missionaries from manually converting a city.

Basically, there are 3 ways to spread religion:
1) Using Prophets and Missionary's ability. After your first 2 Great Prophets are used (found and enhance religion), the next ones should be converting your cities first, then enemy cities.

Click to expand...

A commonly used variation is, after founding, to use your next 200 faith for a missionary to convert nearby cities and start a pressure wave, and enhance later (perhaps with your 300 faith GP or with Hagia Sophia.

3) Itinerant Preachers. This belief increases the tiles a religion can spread its pressure to. This means that if you have high city density you'll generate a lot of pressure. This belief is only better than Texts if you have high city density and mainly land map, else Texts is better (since it also affects trade route pressure).

Click to expand...

Mostly agree. RT was slightly more powerful in G&K (33%/66%) than in BNW and, in G&K, the main trade off between it and IP was city density and map type. In BNW, IP still exerts pressure out 13 tiles, while RT is still limited to 10 tiles, EXCEPT in each case for trade route pressure. For cities beyond your religion's pressure distance (whether 10 or 13 tiles), if there is a trade route, pressure is exported regardless of distance. In those cases, RT is "better" since the pressure exported will be greater than IP.

killmeplease said:

1. each city exerts its majority religion pressure on nearby cities (but not on itself. except for a holy city which pressures itself with quite a big pressure, dont remember exact number), standard map/speed=6 pressure pert turn. pressure from different cities but same religion adds up e.g. you have 3 cities nearby, 2 of which were converted to religion, and the third is non-religious, two religious cities exert 12 pressure on the third city and 6 pressure on each other. if the third city becomes religious, each of 3 will get 12 pressure from other two.

2. pressure does not depend on faith generation

3. yes, a city starts to pressure once its converted

4. city only exerts a majority religion pressure

5. pressure does not fall with distance

6. outwards pressure of the holy city is the same to an ordinary converted city
grand temple definitely doubles pressure. (6->12)

7. religion cant go forever afaik, unless you outpressure it completely. though your pressure can be easily removed by an inquisitor or prophet. you can make it harder by adopting the Unity of the Prophets reformation belief.

8. yes you're right. in the long run follower numbers will get to pressures proportion. but it can take forever if one of religions has too many pressure accumulated there. so you will never convert that city without the use of inq/proph

9. missionary strength is always the same (1000 at standard speed) but can be increased by missionary zeal belief.

Click to expand...

Agree with all of this.

Thanks for all the quick answers!

I stayed up till 3 am last night playing one of my better religious games yet. Luckily of the 4 neighboring civilizations only one, the closest to me, went for religion. A quick prophet through their 3 cities earlier ended up pushing forth the religion to all 4 nations very rapidly.

The holy city still had 30ish pressure regardless but the other cities had no pressure expect from my religion. He would use prophets whenever he could to convert his 3, eventually 4 cities back to his religion, but with trade routes between so many civs to his cities, the pressure was above 100 even after a prophet went through.

Now it seems like the rate of conversion is significantly slower in BNW. Like I mentioned, in some of his cities, my pressure was over a 100, with his barely around 30 or less and it took ages to have those cities flip back over. (I tried to respect his request of me not manually converting his cities anymore).

Also I think I'm miss understanding missionaries... A civ dropped a new city later in the game close to my civilization, and when it had about 3 population, an AI sent over a missionary, converted it to a new religion 2 followers to 1. That religion had no pressure on the city otherwise and pressure from my cities was over 50 or 60.

Yet when I sent my missionary over there, it said that it would convert no citizens to the new religion? How are the missionaries that weak? That they can't even convert a single citizen to a different religion? I noticed similar scenarios with city states... one city state had been influenced by an AI missionary, and the city was set at 4 followers to 4, again my pressure was very high on this city. I send over a missionary and attempt to use him, AGAIN, it said that no one would be converted and that there would not be a majority religion after using the missionary.

killmeplease said:

9. missionary strength is always the same (1000 at standard speed) but can be increased by missionary zeal belief.

Click to expand...

So what does that actually mean, 1000 "strength". What is religion strength, isn't the prophet 1000 as well? Even though the missionary obviously is a lot weaker than a prophet?

So what am I missing here? When is it effective to use missionaries? I remember them being really OP in gods and kings.

pressure shown at the city banner is per-turn pressure. while missionary delivers one-time pressure of 1000 points per each spread mission (strength = pressure). and followers proportion is determined by the relation of accumulated pressures from different religions. so conversion effectiveness depends on the other religion's pressure in that city. say if theres 10000 pressure of buddhism accumulated in a 10-pop city, and you come with a christian missionary and make 2 spreads, thats 2000 pressure. proportion is 2000:10000, thus you get 2/(2+10)=1,67 followers (which is rounded to 1 at the city banner i think). and if theres much more pressure, you wont make any christian followers at all. so, to fight rival religions, you'd better to use GPs, who clean a city from any other religions pressure before they add 1000 pressure of yours. so, if it was a prophet, not missionary, it would clean that 10000 buddhism and then add 1000 christian pressure.

so you'd better to use missionaries to convert non-religious cities, and use prophets to fight other religions. or inquisitors to purge rival religions pressure from your citys. inquisitor when stationed in a city also prevents rival missionaries and prophets from performing a spread mission onto that city.

there are also another two things good to know
1. when a city grows, 100 pressure of majority religion is added. but if theres no majority religion, 100 pressure points of "atheism" pseudo religion are added. also when you build new cities, they start with 100 atheism pressure. and another 100 is added each time they grow. so, it can be useful some times to hold the growth so the city would convert faster and then your religion pressure will be added on growth.

say theres size 1 city and 6 pressure is exerted onto it. it will take 100/6=16,67, or 17 turns to convert it. but if it grows to size 2 before that, conversion delayed further (now it will take at least 200+1 pressure to outpressure the atheism, so the total time becomes 200/6=33,3 or 34 turns)

thus it depends on a citys history how much pressure it will take to convert it, and its true even for GPs as atheism cant be cleared by GP or Inquisitor and remains there for the whole game.

e.g. you want to convert a non-religious size 12 city. theres 1200 atheism it it, so you need 2 spreads to convert it manually, or 1200/whateverextertedpressure turns to do it passively. it can take any more longer if theres another religion(s) pressures that city as you need to overcome not only atheism pressure but the rival religion(s) accumulating pressure as well (they're added, e.g. if theres 1000 atheism, 200 hinduism and 500 buddhism you should bring 1701 pressure to convert the city, or purge it and bring 1001 pressure).

if theres some religion majority already in the city, it can vary to large extent how much pressure you need. say you brings your prophet to a size 12 buddhist city. it may take 1 or 2 spread missions to convert it, depends on how much atheism there is (on what turn it was converted to buddhism and atheism points ceased to accumulate, it can be size 1 or size 12, so atheism fraction can be from 100 to 1200 pressure, and it isnt shown at the city banner!).

so it may be better to accompany a prophet with a couple missionaries (which are generally cheaper) if you are going to convert a country of big cities: prophet clears a rival religion an adds first 1000 pressure of yours, and goes to the next city. then missionary arrives and finishes the job if theres still <50% followers of your religion in that city.

Thanks! Great information to know indeed.

Holy cities have an inate internal pressure of 30. Any city that is converted to a religion spreads 6 pressure to any city within ten tiles. A religion with Itinerant Preachers delivers 6 pressure to cities within 13 tiles. A religion with Religious Texts delivers 8 pressure to cities within 10 tiles. A religion with Religious Texts delivers 10 pressure to cities within ten tiles after Printing Press has been researched.

anthropophage said:

Holy cities have an inate internal pressure of 30. Any city that is converted to a religion spreads 6 pressure to any city within ten tiles. A religion with Itinerant Preachers delivers 6 pressure to cities within 13 tiles. A religion with Religious Texts delivers 8 pressure to cities within 10 tiles. A religion with Religious Texts delivers 10 pressure to cities within ten tiles after Printing Press has been researched.

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in BNW texts give +25/50% so its 7.5/9 pressure