Religion questions

iwn

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 8, 2015
Messages
31
I am at noble level and have never really learned about the religions. A few questions:

1. How do I find out the state religions of other civs (other than when they ask you to convert?) I don't see that info in the religious advisor.


2. If I switch religions, are the diplomatic bonuses/penalties instant? Do they grow over time?

3. Is it ill advised to switch to a religion of the most powerful Civs due to the money and espionage they get from you?

4. The Apolostic Palace has been incredibly annoying to me. What can I do to minimize unhappiness when Defying a vote? (such as when they try to "assign" my city to someone else). Unhappiness from these votes has seriously harmed my economy.

5. On that note how can I tell who owns the AP and where it is? I'd like taking it over to be an option.

Thanks
 
1) The symbol for the religion a civilizaton is running is in the row with the civilization's score on the main screen. If they control the holy city of their state religion, the symbol will have a gold star on it.

2) The diplomatic bonuses/penalties are instant.

3) No, the AI can't leverage the espionage efficetively and the money from the shrine they get is much less important than having good relations with a powerful block of civs.

4) Vote yes on the next resolution and hope it passes. Or gain control of the AP yourself and become resident. Or conquer the AP city and burn it to the ground.

5) One of the advisors (I forget the name) that has the demographics screen has a tab with the top 5 cities and list of built wonders. If the AP is built in a city you know exists, the tab will tell you it's in that city. If you haven't located the AP city yet, the tab will say the AP has been built but in an unkown city.
 
2) The diplomatic bonuses/penalties are instant.

Eh? The bonuses/maluses increase over time and peak at different values for different leaders. E.g. Isabella values religion highly and goes as high as +7 or 8, not sure, while Darius does not care much for religion and peaks at +2 or so.
 
2. If I switch religions, are the diplomatic bonuses/penalties instant? Do they grow over time?

2) The diplomatic bonuses/penalties are instant.

Eh? The bonuses/maluses increase over time and peak at different values for different leaders. E.g. Isabella values religion highly and goes as high as +7 or 8, not sure, while Darius does not care much for religion and peaks at +2 or so.

IIRC, both are correct. You get a (fairly small) immediate bonus/malus, which grows over time.

3. Is it ill advised to switch to a religion of the most powerful Civs due to the money and espionage they get from you?

If I'm understanding the question, then I don't believe the AI still gets any espionage from shared religion. (Since you mentioned AP, you must be playing BtS.) I vaguely remember from my brief stint playing Vanilla that shared religion gave you city visibility or something, but I'm almost positive any religion-type espionage was done away with when they reworked the espionage system in BtS.

As far as money- if you mean shrine income, the AI will get that regardless of your religion. Shrine gold comes from every city that has the shrine's religion present in the city, whatever the civ's state religion is. Now, if you decide to convert to Hinduism to be friends with [gigantic Hindu civ], and spread Hinduism to all your cities, then yeah, [gigantic Hindu civ] will get a little more money that way. But as Lennier mentioned, the diplo bonus is usually worth it.
 
1) The symbol for the religion a civilizaton is running is in the row with the civilization's score on the main screen. If they control the holy city of their state religion, the symbol will have a gold star on it.
The same information is also available at the top left of the trading window, to the left of a Leader's name (seen when talking with an AI Leader).

AIs are programmed to select a Religion, so the turn after the first Religion spreads to an AI, that AI will switch Religions. If an AI loses all Cities in its current State Religion and has at least one City with another Religion in it, that AI will highly prioritize switching to one of the other Religions that exists in at least one of its Cities.


IIRC, both are correct. You get a (fairly small) immediate bonus/malus, which grows over time.
I agree with this statement, but there's another subtlety to consider. There are actually two Diplo Attitude modifiers built into one summed value, which can make things a bit confusing.

Specifically, the XML contains a value called iSameReligionLimit, which is a number between 1 and 7 for various Leaders. This value will start off being 1 and every 10 turns (as per the iSameReligionDivisor variable), that value will increase by 1. Yet, also, if that AI owns the Holy City, that AI will give you a bonus +1, so, initially, you'll see +2, then +3 10 turns later for most Leaders (although Willem only has a value of 1 for iSameReligionLimit, so you won't see that number increase after 10 turns for him, and a few Leaders, such as Lincoln, Mao, Montezuma, Sitting Bull, Stalin, and Suleiman, have a value of 2, so their values won't increase after 20 turns).

Similarly, there is a iDifferentReligion variable that has values between 0 and -2 for various Leaders. That value only takes 5 turns to increase, so it quickly reaches its maximum. In addition, an AI can hate you by an additional -1 as part of the same total value if that AI owns that Religion's Holy City.

Here are some examples:
Willem, with iSameReligionLimit = 1 and iDifferentReligion = 0
Isabella, with iSameReligionLimit = 6 and iDifferentReligion = -2
Case i. AI = Owns the Buddhist Holy City, Buddhism as State Religion
You = Hinduism as State Religion

Case ii. AI = Does not own the Buddhist Holy City, Buddhism as State Religion
You = Hinduism as State Religion

Case iii. AI = Owns the Buddhist Holy City, Buddhism as State Religion
You = Buddhism as State Religion

Case iv. AI = Does not own the Buddhist Holy City, Buddhism as State Religion
You = Buddism as State Religion

Case i.
Initially:
Willem = -1
Isabella = -3

After 5 turns:
Willem = -2
Isabella = -4

Case ii.
Willem = 0 (no penalty appears)
Isabella = -2

After 5 turns:
Willem = -1
Isabella = -3

Case iii.
Willem = = +2
Isabella = +2

After 10 turns:
Willem = +3 (maxed out)
Isabella = +3

After 20 turns:
Willem = +3 (no change)
Isabella = +4

After 30 turns:
Isabella = +5

After 40 turns:
Isabella = +6

After 50 turns:
Isabella = +7

After 60 turns:
Isabella = +8 (maxed out)

After 70 turns:
Isabella = +8 (no change)

case iv.
Willem = +1
Isabella = +1

After 10 turns:
Willem = +2 (maxed out)
Isabella = +2

After 20 turns:
Willem = +2 (no change)
Isabella = +3

...

After 60 turns:
Isabella = +7 (maxed out)

After 70 turns:
Isabella = +7 (no change)


Actually, in looking at those numbers, I think that the total likely consists of THREE different values:
a) +1 for currently sharing the same State Religion or -1 for currently having different State Religions
b) An over-time positive or negative value
c) An extra positive or negative value if that AI owns the Holy City of that AI's State Religion

Then, due to capping of the values, one can see confusing values, such as Isabella starting out at -2 without having the Holy City. I don't think that I quite have all of the details straight in my head, but the numbers in the cases are from in-game testing, so the totals will be accurate.

Of course, this subtlety might have to do with the fact that the XML values don't look like they were used consistently (I'm not sure if that fact was intentional or not, but the end result is quite satisfying, as Isabella quickly really hates you for running a conflicting State Religion):
iSameReligion is 1 for everyone
iSameReligionLimit is between 1 and 7
iDifferentReligion is between 0 and -2
iDifferentReligionLimit is -1 for everyone

Notice how the "Limit" versus the non-Limit variables were varied differently.


It would help if someone were to dig up the relevant code, so that we could see exactly how these XML variables get used in the code.


Yet another subtle point is that these Diplo Attitude modifiers can decay over time, if you and the AI switch between the status of "sharing a State Religion" and "having different State Religions," either due to changing Religions or due to going into Free Religion, and then coming back to the original status at a later time. Vanilla and BtS decaying times work differently, and since I play Vanilla, Warlords, and BtS all regularly as part of the Game of the Month games, I get confused as to how exactly the decaying works, so I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure that part out. Basically, there's a period of time where, if you switch statuses (the opposite of sharing or not sharing a State Religion) and then switch back again, the time-based penalty or bonus will still be there or will still partially be there.


3. Is it ill advised to switch to a religion of the most powerful Civs due to the money and espionage they get from you?
Probably the best uses of State Religion in terms of Diplomacy are to get an AI to like you more, or to get AIs to like each other less.

Holy Shrine Gold income will not be altered by the State Religion that any player is running.

The limited types of Espionage Missions that AIs can run against you are such a small factor in the overall game picture that it's not even worth worrying about if an AI will need to spend slightly more or less Espionage Points to run a Spy Mission against you. AIs also probably don't make use of passive Espionage benefits in the same way that players do (i.e. an AI won't change its tech path even if it "knows" which tech you are researching) and thus it's probably not worth your while to worry about the passive Espionage costs for AIs.

However, a more important consideration is a City that is in danger of Culture-flipping: if it is your City and the City contains the AI's State Religion but does not contain your State Religion, the City will have a considerably larger chance of Culture-flipping to the AI (or, at least going into City Revolt the first time), so it pays to have your State Religion in any City of yours that is under Cultural pressure from an AI.

That's why it can pay to bring along a Missionary or two with you when you go to war, so that you can spread your State Religion as you capture Cities.


4. The Apolostic Palace has been incredibly annoying to me. What can I do to minimize unhappiness when Defying a vote? (such as when they try to "assign" my city to someone else). Unhappiness from these votes has seriously harmed my economy.
Only Cities with the AP Religion in them will suffer Unhappiness.

So, either don't spread that Religion and you'll have less negative effects from Defying (although you'll be at risk for losing to an AP Religious Victory if all players have at least one City with that State Religion) or else spread that Religion very actively and try to get enough votes to sway the results of the AP Resolutions in your favour.


5. On that note how can I tell who owns the AP and where it is?
Press the F9 key to see the INFO SCREEN -> TOP 5 CITIES / WONDERS sub-screen

That screen will tell you which AI owns the Wonder. Explore the map (or trade World Maps) to reveal that AI's Cities in order to find out which City it is located in.

I'm not sure if you have to reveal that AI's City after the Wonder has been built or not, but if you do, you could set your Epsionage Points Weighting (Ctrl + e screen) on that AI and try to get passive Espionage visibility of that AI's Cities which you have already revealed on the map, but probably getting a World Map from that AI or from another AI who has mapped-out that AI's lands will be your best approach.
 
Press the F9 key to see the INFO SCREEN -> TOP 5 CITIES / WONDERS sub-screen

That screen will tell you which AI owns the Wonder. Explore the map (or trade World Maps) to reveal that AI's Cities in order to find out which City it is located in.

I'm not sure if you have to reveal that AI's City after the Wonder has been built or not, but if you do, you could set your Epsionage Points Weighting (Ctrl + e screen) on that AI and try to get passive Espionage visibility of that AI's Cities which you have already revealed on the map, but probably getting a World Map from that AI or from another AI who has mapped-out that AI's lands will be your best approach.

I'm certain that once you've seen a city, your adviser will always know all the wonders in it.

If the city is captured, you might need to go and look at it again or trade for a map as it will disappear from your maps.
 
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