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[BNW] Religion: Spreading and Defending Your Religion (BNW)

Browd

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Hi

Sorry to drag up an old topic but I have a question....

Once I've successfully converted every one of my neighbours' cities eventually they still end up founding a religion of their own and I'd like to know how best to combat this?

If I continue to send prophets in there I'm worsening relations (and I'd rather not), and also I am using great prophets which I may need to use defensively or for shrines.

Also it can get expensive, as has been said, to make great prophets in the later eras so it's a tall order trying to keep them following my faith and abandoning their own fledgling one.

Any help on this please guys? :)


EDIT: One thing I've noticed is they (may) seem less inclined to form their own religion after conversion if their primary choice of religion has, at that point, already been taken by someone else. Is this true? Is my best approach to use the religion that civ would have chosen primarily? For instance, if my neighbour is Arabia should I pick Islam as my religion to make it so when I convert Arabia they do just accept it permanently and not form their own?
 
If a religion is available to be founded, it eventually will be. If you don’t want to prophet bomb after they have founded, then your only hope is that you have already converted the cities around their capital, and the natural pressure suppresses the new religion.
 
If a religion is available to be founded, it eventually will be. If you don’t want to prophet bomb after they have founded, then your only hope is that you have already converted the cities around their capital, and the natural pressure suppresses the new religion.

I did that entirely

There was no religion, in my last game, besides mine, in any city on the continent. Arabia were to the east and they accepted it fine. Persia were to the West and they accepted it at first but eventually started Zoroastrianism.

Any ideas why?
 
What era where you in when Persia founded? I think it is just RNG. Harun actually has a stronger religious flavor than Darius. In your game, I think Harun never founded only because the opportunity never presented itself.

My experience is that all the AI civs hard to get traction with their own religions, even harder than a human player will. The AI can be silly like that, because maybe your religion has good follower benefits, and the what’s available to a new religion is very poor. The AIs do not account for that, so if they can, they will found (rather than planting a holy site). Since you can’t stop the natural GP spawning (at least through to the industrial era) once they found, they might use their 2nd GP to spread, and then you are kind of stuck.

Short of GP bombing their capital (which, when timed well, takes care of the problem and is only a medium diplomatic penalty), you have to have your religion in all cities nearby their capital. Then you have to hope religious pressure converts it to your religion before their second GP. It takes a fair amount of luck, even with a good setup.
 
pressure is still confusing to me. i was just in a deity Assyria game and lucked into a pantheon from meeting two early faith CSs. i also lucked into a local GBR spot I could settle my 2nd city on (around t40 or so). I chose the +4 faith from Natural Wonders. It went wasted for about 20 turns until i actually settled and bought those GBR tiles.

At pop 3 I had 2 citizens for my pantheon and 1 citizen for Arabia's religion (to the east of me, about 25 tiles away for his nearest city). I was getting the 8 faith plus one more from a shrine in my cap. It got me the 3rd religion somewhere around t70 (tithe/pagodas). Since it was my 2nd city i should have founded there but I instead founded in my cap out of habit.

When that city went to 4 pop I instantly lost the 8 faith because the new citizen was following Japan's religion to my north. So it said 2 for my pantheon, 1 for Arabia, 1 for Japan. My religion hadnt spread yet because I didnt have a missionary yet. It effectively shut down my ability to enhance my religion at just 1 fpt. It just makes no sense that a new pop is instantly granted to a new religion. i would have thought turns and pressure would be involved. Maybe pantheon bonuses should always kick in if you have more followers, regardless of majority. 2 out of 4 should constitute those bonuses, imo.
 
Try reloading and founding in your second city, see how things go, and report back!

If your pantheon has better benefits for your second city, you really should found there. Things are little odd, because once you found, new settlers do not carry their pantheon with them. Also, you cannot faith buy inquisitors until you enhance, which can leave your founding city a little vulnerable.
 
Try reloading and founding in your second city, see how things go, and report back!

If your pantheon has better benefits for your second city, you really should found there. Things are little odd, because once you found, new settlers do not carry their pantheon with them. Also, you cannot faith buy inquisitors until you enhance, which can leave your founding city a little vulnerable.

i wanted to find the initial auto save to replay it but i couldnt. they were for another game i played after it. i have t76 save but all those decisions had already been made. its rare that i find GBR with no CSs near it and near my cap. oh well, it'll happen again. hehe, maybe.

not to derail this thread but ...
Spoiler :
i tried another effort at Assyria on deity in hopes of going tall science/diplo/dom (not sure which). and a CS, Kabul, had Fountain of Youth. I thought it would be interesting to actually take Kabul for my own so I could have the happiness and the defensive bonus to hold it. it was in decent position but had little in terms of resources other than FoY and 1 copy of incense. but i hadnt gotten techs for other resources like iron yet. I got archery from a rune on t7 and started making archers (only good ruin other than 20 culture one). i used them to train on Kabul (and take 1 worker) until i got to compbows. when i got there, i upgraded 4 of my 6 archers, all had 2 promos. i had 1 gifted Catapult and my starting warrior. it took about 15t to get into position (had to move around a mtn range and attack from north of Kabul--plus Catherine was being obnoxious with blocking that path with her units) and another 3 to take it.

but holy cow, id forgotten what kind of diplo penalties you get for actually taking a CS (and Genghis was in this game too). I had 3 civs denounce me and 2 DoW (ottomans and england) me on the following turn, one of which I had a DoF with (Ottomans). I hadnt been in any previous wars. i did anger the 2 civs it was protected by when I Dow'd Kabul but it was expected they would hate me (oddly enough they werent the DoWers). the other 3 i couldnt deal with. My whole army was up there and Ottomans had 10+ units about 5 turns from my cap. i basically foresaw that impending war and ditched the game.

i really dont wanna threadjack this so if you need to respond to the FoY/Kabul game you can reach me in private message. if you need to discuss religion mechanics then carry on.

 
Good read M8. Good read.
 
I'm on my second game where it's only allowing 2 total world religions. I started this game by building a shrine, temple, and opening 2 Religions Social Policies right away, then built the Hagia Sophia, which gave me a Great Prophet pretty early. I got a Pantheon fairly early, but I'm not getting the option to Found A Religion. When I click on the Religion Overview screen, it now says 2 Total World Religions, 0 still allowed. I've never encountered this and can't seem to find anyone having the same issue. When my Great Prophets are born, that don't have the option to create a religion, only a holy site. Since this is the second game, I paid close attention to the religions being founded and I only noticed the 2 it's mentioning; Islam and Catholicism. I think that 13 are normal. Now there are only 2? I'm early in the game with no possibility of a religion. Anyone know what's going on? Is this a bug or did I miss something?
 
Implied map size by only 2 religions allowed to be founded is "Duel".
It's in the World Size XML and the unmodified value for each world size is (default number of major players / 2) + 1.
This also implies he's increased the number of major players beyond the default 2 for this map size.
 
Actually, it's half the default number of civs, plus one. For a Tiny map, MaxActiveReligions is 3. For max religions to be 2, he would be playing on a Duel map (assuming no mod and no edits to the default XML files).
 
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