How Underground Sect actually works

Aenthin · Jul 24, 2015

I've always wondered how this works and it's really only now that I've understood how it works.

It's a pretty common misconception that spies exert religious pressure on their own. In reality, spies exert pressure if and only if there were existing religious pressure on that city to begin with. In a distant city where there is no pressure from your religion, the spy will not exert pressure. However, when religious pressure starts to exist (e.g. setting up a trade route to that distant city), then Underground Sect begins to do its wonders.

Another misconception comes from digging the .xml files. It says on the files that spies only exert 5 religious pressure--1 less pressure compared to a regular city on Standard speed. However, I noticed while testing that my spies actually converted followers faster than sending two trade routes to a distant city. Then I realized, 5 religious pressure on the .xml files probably didn't mean 5 flat pressure. It probably meant it had the strength of at least 5 cities exerting pressure on the same city (which is 30 pressure on standard)!

tl;dr, Underground Sect allows spies to add 5 cities-worth of religious pressure to an already existing religious pressure, thus speeding up the process of conversion.

Of course, there's still the debate of whether or not this is still actually useful compared to other equally, if not more powerful, reformation beliefs. Not to mention, you'll probably want your spies to actually do something other than spreading religion...maybe...

----

An update to this. Basically, a couple of folks helped me discern the true effects of Underground Sect in Reddit (here's the thread if you're interested). To summarize, though:

When your spy/diplomat is sent to a city, Underground Sect will only work:

If there is existing pressure exerted towards the target city, or
If the city has at least 1 follower of your religion

If one of these conditions is met, your spies/diplomats will exert 5 cities-worth of religious pressure, which depends on game speed:

Quick: 45 Pressure total
Standard: 30 Pressure total
Epic: 20 Pressure total
Marathon: 10 Pressure total

This religious pressure is not affected by the Arabian UA, Religious Unity or Religious Texts Enhancer Beliefs although they can still be used in conjunction for spreading your religion faster.

HorseshoeHermit · Jul 24, 2015

Pics or it didn't happen.

TheMarshmallowBear · Jul 24, 2015

Horseshoe_Hermi said:
Pics or it didn't happen.

It was tested by me. I was modding for a scenario and realized that if increased pressure you can pretty much insta flip a civ. There should be somethin about the belief in one of the guides/war academy thingies.

docbud · Jul 24, 2015

Horseshoe_Hermi said:
Pics or it didn't happen.

Pics of what?

I never understood folks who always demand pictures or it didn't happen.

Aenthin · Aug 2, 2015

Horseshoe_Hermi said:
Pics or it didn't happen.

Delivered. Twice.

An update to this. Basically, a couple of folks helped me discern the true effects of Underground Sect in Reddit (here's the thread if you're interested). To summarize, though:

When your spy/diplomat is sent to a city, Underground Sect will only work:

If there is existing pressure exerted towards the target city, or
If the city has at least 1 follower of your religion

If one of these conditions is met, your spies/diplomats will exert 5 cities-worth of religious pressure, which depends on game speed:

Quick: 45 Pressure total
Standard: 30 Pressure total
Epic: 20 Pressure total
Marathon: 10 Pressure total

This religious pressure is not affected by the Arabian UA, Religious Unity or Religious Texts Enhancer Beliefs although they can still be used in conjunction for spreading your religion faster.

HorseshoeHermit · Aug 2, 2015

Then... Underground Sect actually spreads the religion secretly. Kinda. As well as any other way of fudging the feedback.

Why does Manila jump to two followers, do you think? I don't know that the 5-times figure is accurate, since that would predict Prague should be way slower than Manila, but as a guess to my question it could be the Spy pressure showing up after the other pressure algorithmically. So the first follower gets there, then the Sect condition is run for the city , applying so much pressure it bumps over the first and second follower ribbons.

Religious Texts carries the expected meaning of "Religious Pressure from cities spreads 25% faster", if undocumented.

Aenthin · Aug 2, 2015

Considering you don't want your enemies to show where your spies are, of course it will not show pressure exerted by them. The mod on the second album reveals the pressure exerted by the spies, however, and shows the 5-times figure as +30 Religious Pressure constantly.

Also as to why Prague doesn't seem to convert too fast compared to Manila most likely because of how religious strength works. Even with a Great Prophet and a couple of Missionaries, when you're trying to convert a city with generally high population, you don't always completely convert all of the citizens to your religion. Hell, you'll even often see Holy Cities having 23 followers despite having 25 citizens, a Grand Temple, being surrounded by 5 cities of the same religion, and having 3 trade routes to cities with the same religion (or similar). I think this is partly because of balance, because the Religious Tolerance social policy wouldn't work otherwise.

kaspergm · Aug 2, 2015

Wow, this was actually enlightening, I'll have to eat my previous words that Underground Sect is utterly useless. Whether it'll actually be useful when there are other religions in play ... well, that's another question.

ThorHammerz · Aug 2, 2015

Aenthin said:
If one of these conditions is met, your spies/diplomats will exert 5 cities-worth of religious pressure, which depends on game speed:

Horseshoe_Hermi said:
Why does Manila jump to two followers, do you think? I don't know that the 5-times figure is accurate,

Actually, it's correct...... which makes underground sects rather powerful :crazyeye:

(contrary to popular belief). Pics are unnecessary if one can verify the logic with the actual game code

Code:

void CvCityReligions::AddSpyPressure(ReligionTypes eReligion, int iBasePressure)
{
	bool bRecompute = false;
	ReligionTypes eOldMajorityReligion = GetReligiousMajority();

	ReligionInCityList::iterator it;
	for(it = m_ReligionStatus.begin(); it != m_ReligionStatus.end(); it++)
	{
		if(it->m_eReligion == eReligion)
		{
			[B]int iPressure = GC.getGame().getGameSpeedInfo().getReligiousPressureAdjacentCity();
			iPressure *= iBasePressure;
			it->m_iPressure += iPressure;[/B]

			// Found it, so we're done
			bRecompute = true;
		}
	}

	// Didn't find it, add new entry
	if(bRecompute)
	{
		RecomputeFollowers(FOLLOWER_CHANGE_SPY_PRESSURE, eOldMajorityReligion);
	}
}

The value of int iBasePressure is the value of SpyPressure found in

Code:

		<Row>
			<Type>BELIEF_UNDERGROUND_SECT</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_BELIEF_UNDERGROUND_SECT</Description>
			<ShortDescription>TXT_KEY_BELIEF_UNDERGROUND_SECT_SHORT</ShortDescription>
			<Reformation>true</Reformation>
			[B]<SpyPressure>5</SpyPressure>[/B]
		</Row>

KrikkitTwo · Aug 2, 2015

If they added the text "in cities with your religion" it would have avoided so much annoyance.

Aenthin · Aug 2, 2015

KrikkitTwo said:
If they added the text "in cities with your religion" it would have avoided so much annoyance.

Agreed. Same with Unity of the Prophets, really. It took me a while to realize they were talking about rival Inquisitors and Great Prophets being unable to remove your religion completely.

HorseshoeHermit · Aug 3, 2015

Aenthin said:
Agreed. Same with Unity of the Prophets, really. It took me a while to realize they were talking about rival Inquisitors and Great Prophets being unable to remove your religion completely.

Ooh, I just thought maybe some special names could have helped with that. "Inquisition(s) and Great Prophecy(ies) reduce this religion's presence by half instead of eliminating it." Instead of referring just to the unit which is a distraction from a syntactic standpoint.

The math of the experiments, if I done this right, means that follower pressure is logarithmic (the requirements are exponential). It's the only way that they could make f(6x) =~ C + f(x) for even that short test frame.

....
which again, is about the only shot the game had at keeping it secret. Once you know the spread isn't following the projection, you -know- there's a Spy. It's just the difficulty of tracking the number yourself (and reading into a hidden variable, besides).

Eagle Pursuit · Aug 3, 2015

Very interesting. It makes me want to go try it with Arabia.

beetle · Aug 4, 2015

Great find OP! Thanks!

This seems like a Deity-level way to spread my religion. Definitely could be fun!

Now, can someone spell out how having many AI cities following my religion be significant leverage for some VC?

Eagle Pursuit said:
Very interesting. It makes me want to go try it with Arabia.

Why Arabia in particular? Because the extra range means getting that first point of influence is easier?

HorseshoeHermit · Aug 4, 2015

beetle said:
Great find OP! Thanks!

This seems like a Deity-level way to spread my religion. Definitely could be fun!

Now, can someone spell out how having many AI cities following my religion be significant leverage for some VC?

Imagine all the reasons you want your cities to have your religion. Now take that away.

Also founder beliefs that aren't IFD.

Aenthin · Aug 4, 2015

beetle said:
Why Arabia in particular? Because the extra range means getting that first point of influence is easier?

Probably of the following things:

Longer caravan range
Double religious pressure from trade routes (doesn't multiply spy pressure, but stacks well)
Desert bias for Desert Folklore
If all else fails, Camel Archers!

beetle · Aug 4, 2015

Horseshoe_Hermi said:
Imagine all the reasons you want your cities to have your religion. Now take that away.

Mostly I value founding to (1) keep my pantheon, (2) some free money from Tithe, (3) the easy CS quests, and (4) extra faith from Grand Temple. I tend to keep my religion in my cities just because I can.

I may be thinking too small, but I don’t see how your thought exercise helps answer my question.

But now having read the Reddit thread, I think the main appeal of Underground Sect is how much easier it makes converting CS. So that appeals to me, but I not sure how I could really exploit it. Maybe for DiploV? Hmm, I might revisit the Siam DCL, as my finish time on that map was awful.

Also founder beliefs that aren't IFD.

Founder beliefs are so weak, I have never considered the ones that give per-city benefits. Underground Sect could change that! One could also get proper traction from Papal Primacy.

HorseshoeHermit · Aug 4, 2015

beetle said:
Mostly I value founding to (1) keep my pantheon, (2) some free money from Tithe, (3) the easy CS quests, and (4) extra faith from Grand Temple. I tend to keep my religion in my cities just because I can.

I may be thinking too small, but I don’t see how your thought exercise helps answer my question.

Take those things away from your opponents. Except 3, which AIs can't do.

Also the best defense for your religion is always spreading your religion, and the same goes for spreading followers around for Tithe and World Church (if you pick up that booby prize). I just assumed this was obvious... but that's not explaining this conversation.

Acken · Aug 4, 2015

Still think it's crap for a reformation belief but it's a rather interesting find

Eagle Pursuit · Aug 4, 2015

Aenthin said:
Probably of the following things:

Longer caravan range

Double religious pressure from trade routes (doesn't multiply spy pressure, but stacks well)

Desert bias for Desert Folklore

If all else fails, Camel Archers!

The second point in particular.

How Underground Sect actually works

Warlord

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Emperor

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Per Scribendum, Volo

Deity

20% accurate as usual, Morty

Warlord

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20% accurate as usual, Morty

Deity

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