Barbarian Missionary?

Hi all, I'm a C3C player new to Civ V. I purchased Civ V Complete via Steam's sale and am running BNW.

In my first Chieftain learning game, AI Spain noticed my forces converging towards Barcelona and pulled their missionary away from my front line - for some reason Isabella decided to move it towards a barbarian encampment.

I'm used to seeing barbs kill civilian units in Civ III, is this not the case in BNW? As I passed by the encampment I noticed they captured some of Spain's units - near the encampment is a barbarian worker and the barbarian missionary.

Is this supposed to happen? I find the idea of barbarian religion to be counter-intuitive, but anyways... As the unit failed to spread its beliefs of filth and nihilism to a Catholic Barcelona, the only way I could remove the unit was by bombarding it using the annexed city. Also the barbs didn't know how to use the unit, it just stood there and took the blows....

I like this game


EDIT: Oh! Finally found something with some googling. Barbarian-captured civilian units are normal, and they are only liberated when the encampment is cleared. If this is the case, wouldn't my new Chinese missionary still be Catholic? (Spain's religion) In which case, if this happens again would it still have any use for me or should I simply delete it?

Yes, it will retain the original religion (it's a little irritating when you realise that for the first time and accidentally convert one of your own cities).

I usually liberate the units for the diplomatic improvement, unless it belongs to someone I don't like, in which case I'd just delete it to stop paying the maintenance.

Another tip - if you capture an enemy's Great Prophet and it still has 4 'Spread Relgion' uses remaining, take it back to one of your cities and build a free Holy Site with it. Otherwise, delete it as well. If you're playing as Sweden you might be able to gift it to a City State for 90 influence, I haven't tested it, but if that works then it would be a really good idea.

Antagonise said:

If you're playing as Sweden you might be able to gift it to a City State for 90 influence, I haven't tested it, but if that works then it would be a really good idea.

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That's a good tip: prophets are the only GP that can be captured. Usefull if you play Sweden and you're at war.

I'm wondering if you can gift a GP after it has already spread its religion at least once, since you cannot create a holy site if it has.

You could capture it and explore with it... It may or may not be able to convert cities though..

Once I used a captured great prophet to spread a third-party religion to neighboring Iroquois cities to counter his religion entering my lands. I was happy with myself for that. And they are handy for spying on a neighbor - at least until they die of attrition.

Antagonise said:

I usually liberate the units for the diplomatic improvement, unless it belongs to someone I don't like, in which case I'd just delete it to stop paying the maintenance.

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Too bad for Isabella, since Barcelona was her last city....

Thanks for all of your thoughts. I killed the missionary before figuring all of this out (newbie at work!) so I have another thought relating to this same game:

I'm having fun with these Chieftain production penalties, my goal is to eliminate all of my continent neighbours before meeting other continents. I read on another thread that I won't get any warmonger penalties from another leader if I did all of my warmongering before I meet them, and since nobody would be alive to denounce me, would my approach be a get out of jail free card?

Because of AI Chieftain production penalties, I'll be the first one to Astronomy (which is a few turns away) and will likely have wiped out my final neighbour before my first Caravel can reach any other continents. I hope this works...

ThisIsHughYoung said:

I read on another thread that I won't get any warmonger penalties from another leader if I did all of my warmongering before I meet them, and since nobody would be alive to denounce me, would my approach be a get out of jail free card?

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I believe this is correct. However, if you told another leader your units were just passing through their land, then declared war on them (betraying your word), every other civ in the game will know this when you meet them, even you eliminate your entire continent. Don't ask me how!

If you are going for a domination victory, and are finding it relatively easy to take out other civs at the moment, then having warmonger penalties with civs on the other continent shouldn't prove too much of a problem, since the AI is typically even worse at naval combat than it is at land combat. On the other hand, it is of course beneficial to have good relations with a couple players so you can buy their luxuries. If they all have coastal capitals, and you have a few decent coastal cities to build a navy with, you should have no problem winning this game. Even if their capitals aren't on the coast, you can take them out very quickly with a lethal combination of nukes and XCOM Squads in the late game - though the city may become hard to defend (unless it's the last capital, in which case you win).

Antagonise said:

I believe this is correct. However, if you told another leader your units were just passing through their land, then declared war on them (betraying your word), every other civ in the game will know this when you meet them, even you eliminate your entire continent. Don't ask me how!

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My guess is that this was made to punish players who use ROP rape. I think my only infraction is prematurely ending a 30 turn gpt + Luxury trade, as well as ending some trade routes by declaring war against Morocco.

Theoretical example: would prematurely ending a 30-turn peace treaty cause this global penalty to occur?

EDIT: XCOM Squads?? Sweet! Didn't know they put these in the game.

My plan now is to finish my continental conquest, save, and then attempt each victory condition from this point. I'm playing China which seems to have some flexibility with VCs and a sweet UU. This should be fun.

you can always use the (less than 4) GP to just screw with whichever of your opponents is leading the religion 'war'

Antagonise said:

I'm wondering if you can gift a GP after it has already spread its religion at least once, since you cannot create a holy site if it has.

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Sweden can gift a "used" Great Prophet to a CS for influence. A common tactic with Sweden is to do 3 spread missions with a GP and then gift the GP (with 1 spread mission left) to a CS.

Browd said:

Sweden can gift a "used" Great Prophet to a CS for influence. A common tactic with Sweden is to do 3 spread missions with a GP and then gift the GP (with 1 spread mission left) to a CS.

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That's incredibly useful. I'll have to try them out some time soon, never really interested me.