Missionaries Made Me a Warmonger

Life got in the way of playing some time after G&K. So now I'm retired and I came back and picked up BNW first thing. I decided to drop back to King while I was getting my feet wet. So, I start a game and I'm doing okay, mid-pack, but it's often just a matter of catching up. Early in the Classical Era, when I have just about enough Faith for a GP to found a religion I get spammed with Missionaries from other civs and, bam! There goes my chance. It was the same in the next couple of games. In the last game I had plenty of CBs and a lucky alliance with a Militaristic CS had provided another unit or two. When the wave of Missionaries (Five of them!) appeared I killed or captured and deleted every one. I was DoWd by two civs, but because it was a water map the war was a farce. I punked their units inbound and bombarded their capitols with Galleasses a couple of times. After a few turns both asked for peace. They both offered nice things for a treaty.

Is missionary spamming now commonplace? If so then I'm going to have to re-examine my peace-loving ways.

Five missionaries was pretty bad luck but yes, missionary spam is common esp when many civs go piety.

Not having your own religion can be ok. You can take advantage of its beliefs and still have faith for later great person purchases.

I do prefer to have my own though I only really try for it if there are faith producing tiles around to give that extra boost.

If you grab inquisiters early when they are cheap you can protect your cities. Or surround your cities or foreign missionaires with your units.

I'm usually circling my cities with units, workers etc. to avoid missioners but that's not possible all the time, so, I'm capturing them and becoming "Warmonger" for other civs.

There must be a way to warn other civs to not send their missioners to my lands, not after they spread it to my cities.

Can't you just station an inquisitor in your city instead of a circle of units?

An inquisitor stops them to spread religion to your cities? I didn't know that. Or you mean, you just use inquisitor to remove other civ's religion after they spread it?

binhthuy71 said:

Early in the Classical Era, when I have just about enough Faith for a GP to found a religion I get spammed with Missionaries from other civs and, bam! There goes my chance. It was the same in the next couple of games.

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Getting converted before you found does not prevent you from founding.

Poulanc said:

Can't you just station an inquisitor in your city instead of a circle of units?

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The one issue with that is of course that Inquisitors cost faith that could be spend on your own missionaries, great prophets, religious happiness buildings (Pagoda's etc), or saved for industrial era great people. If you've got a bunch of spare units kicking around you might as well surround your city with 'em.

FaohKi said:

An inquisitor stops them to spread religion to your cities? I didn't know that. Or you mean, you just use inquisitor to remove other civ's religion after they spread it?

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An Inquisitor stationed in or adjacent to a city (within 1 hex) stops the spread of religion via heathen great prophets and missionaries. It doesn't stop religious pressure from nearby cities with a foreign religion or trade route pressure though.

beetle said:

Getting converted before you found does not prevent you from founding.

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Well that's good news. I thought that any GP I generated after being converted would have a religion and thus only able to spread it or create a Holy site.

BARBEERIAN said:

An Inquisitor stationed in or adjacent to a city (within 1 hex) stops the spread of religion via heathen great prophets and missionaries. It doesn't stop religious pressure from nearby cities with a foreign religion or trade route pressure though.

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Thank you Poulanc and BARBEERIAN. Seems like there is a lot to learn and you guys all so helpful.

Peace.

FaohKi said:

An inquisitor stops them to spread religion to your cities? I didn't know that.

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An inquisitor in or next to a city prevents the spread action of missionaries and GPr.

But that does not help OP because he is talking about missionary spam before he founds.

Also, I am pretty sure you cannot faith-purchase inquisitors unit after you have enhanced your religion.

beetle said:

An inquisitor in or next to a city prevents the spread action of missionaries and GPr.

But that does not help OP because he is talking about missionary spam before he founds.

Also, I am pretty sure you cannot faith-purchase inquisitors unit after you have enhanced your religion.

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Exactly. I was a few turns away from a GP to found so Inquisitors weren't available.

I could not surround my cities with units because that would have required twelve units (Ten land and two ships). My two Galleasses, along with two CBs, were off breaking up Barb camps. A Trireme was still exploring. Roughly half of my available units were at my second city city on a nearby land mass.

binhthuy71 said:

Well that's good news. I thought that any GP I generated after being converted would have a religion and thus only able to spread it or create a Holy site.

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Yeah, that is a little counter-intuitive because faith-purchased missionaries and inquisitors follow the religion of the city they are purchased in. But any faith-purchased GPr will be of the religion you founded. You can only faith-purchas GPr in a city that has a religion, and you cannot faith purchase GPr if you have not founded.

That's right, so if you were to found a religion and make a holy city but another religion gets spread out into your holy city and you want to make a great prophet, then your great prophet would spread the majority religion in your holy city and not the holy city's religion, particularly if you save for prophet. Exception, enhancing a religion in a holy city.

If some of your cities get converted to another religion this is not necessarily a bad thing. Often you can buy their religious buildings and then convert that city to your religion. Generally speaking use missionaries to convert cities that haven't had any past missionaries (you can tell because they will have no or very few religious followers). If cities have been hit by multiple missionaries you will need inquisitors (if the city is yours) or a prophet.
Usually I focus on missionaries in the medieval era. Once you get to Renaissance and beyond missionaries generally become too expensive to spam (unless you have associated Beliefs, Great Mosque & Mandate of Heaven that help to make missionaries cheaper & more efficient).
After that its best to just use a Prophet to hit nearby cities that have accumulated too much foreign religious pressure as a prophet will wipe foreign religious pressure.

You can also help by taking the 'Religious Texts' or 'Itinerant Preachers' beliefs and building the Grand Temple and sending caravans or cargo ships to cities just outside the passive religious pressure range - Trade routes will carry your religion further and the pressure is amplified by the Grand Temple.


To slow enemy missionaries do NOT provide that civ with open borders. Without open borders missionaries will lose their conversion strength by 250 per turn. So normally 4 turns in your territory and a foreign missionary will disappear. Blocking off bridges is often advantageous as it will really slow down missionary movements. Even though they can move 4 tiles per turn they still lose their entire moves embarking/disembarking or crossing rivers.
Also trying to expand your borders as much as possible helps. If you have a wide civ there is no way a foreign missionary will get across with 100% conversion strength. If they spend 3 turns in your territory and are down to 250 conversion strength you can sit back and laugh because your passive pressure will overcome that easily.

reddishrecue said:

That's right, so if you were to found a religion and make a holy city but another religion gets spread out into your holy city and you want to make a great prophet, then your great prophet would spread the majority religion in your holy city and not the holy city's religion, particularly if you save for prophet. Exception, enhancing a religion in a holy city.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong. Great prophets are always your religion, even if your holy city has been converted to another religion.

I have this issue quite often. I usually block off my capitol from missionaries or opposing great prophets. The are usually only out to convert my capitol/holy city, and after awhile, they get frustrated? and go away.

DoWing is not an option and neither is letting your capitol become conveted.

In some cases, it's actually good to get the other religions so that you can get the building faith purchases that you don't get for your own religion.

missionary spam is alright, just don't give open borders and watch them lose a bunch of strength.

prophet bombs, now that's something worth fighting over. I would even consider going to war early if I see more than 2 prophets that I can capture and plant.

Sessy said:

I would even consider going to war early if I see more than 2 prophets that I can capture and plant.

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How can you tell that they haven't spent any of their uses before you capture them?

FaohKi said:

There must be a way to warn other civs to not send their missioners to my lands, not after they spread it to my cities.

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Well, in theory, after an AI converts one of your cities, you can ask them to send their missionaries and prophets elsewhere.

However, in a recent game, I did that to Arabia. They agreed to go elsewhere. And I had a prophet at hand, so I converted my city back to my religion. On the very turn that Arabia promised to stop spreading their religion, they used their prophet a second time on my city.

And so I declared war and totally eliminated them from the game.