Leaders' Favorite Civics and other notes

I was on the same continent as Hannibal and I adopted free markets for the diplomatic bonus. I got all the way up to pleased with him even though we had different religions due to the "you have chosen your civics wisely" bonus but then was surprised when late game he switched to environmentalism.

Does this happen often? Why would a civ switch away from it's favorite civic - isn't a favorite civic a ... well ... favorite civic?

On a related note:

In the same game I was trying to get Ragnar to convert to Hinduism but he was stuck on theocracy. Mousing over "adopt organized religion" gave me a red "that would go against everything we stand for" prompt. But theocracy is not Ragnar's favorite civ - monarchy is. Ragnar has just recently warred with Victoria but that war was over and there was no longer a need for him to continue using theocracy's military benefits. Why the red prompt/refusal?

Curiously enough, Ragnar did in fact convert back to OR in a few turns, so my 3 Hindu missionaries who were camped out in his cities quickly spread their faith within a turn of his change.

Does anyone have insights into these (to me) strange civic switches?

Not all AIs automatically switch to their favorite civics, washington rarely goes to free speech, Mao rarely switches to state property. I would say Hannibal greatly needed the health since He usually sticks with free market.
As far as Ragner, he may not WANT to be tempted to switch your Your religion so he's deliberately blocking. Me also may have someone else in his sights so watch you back.

madscientist said:

Not all AIs automatically switch to their favorite civics, washington rarely goes to free speech, Mao rarely switches to state property. I would say Hannibal greatly needed the health since He usually sticks with free market.
As far as Ragner, he may not WANT to be tempted to switch your Your religion so he's deliberately blocking. Me also may have someone else in his sights so watch you back.

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It turned out that I did manage to convert him to Hinduism but his empire grew to be the second largest next to mine (Saladin). I was going for a diplomatic victory, so he was my rival. All those diplomatic bonuses went to waste.

Not to fear though - Hannibal went to war with Victoria, I joined the war effort and when I arrived at "pleased".

After building the UN I noticed that Hannibal voted for Ragnar over me despite the fact that I had the higher net favorability (+6 vs +5).

To remedy this I bribed Hannibal to switch from environmentalism back to free markets thus giving me +2 more diplomatic bonuses.

I then won a diplomatic victory with Hannibal's votes.

Here's the weird thing - on Prince I was almost exclusively a warmonger. On monarch, 3 of my 4 wins have been diplomatic. The other was space race. On monarch, for me at least, wars are a means to achieving diplomacy!

War is the ultimate diplomatic tool!

Runner said:

Curiously enough, Ragnar did in fact convert back to OR in a few turns, so my 3 Hindu missionaries who were camped out in his cities quickly spread their faith within a turn of his change.

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grats on your win

if the gift box isn't greyed out, so they'll accept the present ... when the AI is in theocracy, you can gift your missionaries to them. that of course means you're trusting them to use them the right way when/if they leave theocracy, but that's what they tend to do in my experience. and it then lets you make more missionaries since you're not limited by the 3-at-a-time cap!

Gifting missionairs? brillants shear brillance (i know they are bothspelled wrong)

not my own brilliance, i read the tip here . and now i've passed it along!

one missionary idea i did have myself, that i've recommend and some people liked, is that if i found one of the late religions that comes with a free missionary (islam maybe) that i don't intend to spread ever, and i don't need a spare in a city, i use him a fake spy kind of. i tend to forget things at times, so i name him something like "I AM A SPY DON'T USE ME" just so that i don't slip up and, like, use him. but then i can walk him around in places where i have OB to gather information. saves me hammers on making something else, and he has two movement, which is convenient.

you do pay support on them, so if you're really poor, or not that curious about their territory, it's probably not worth it. but sometimes it's useful. or just plain fun *giggle*.

doing this has convinced me that the AI doesn't notice what you name your units. even after they've learned alphabet and literature. since if i saw some unit named "I AM A SPY" in my territory i'd boot him out, i'd close borders or something. but they don't.