Are missionaries terrible?

Please let me know if I am doing something wrong, here..

It seems to me that missionaries are just terrible units and a waste of faith points. They simply cannot compete with the awesome power of Great Prophets.

Whenever I use a missionary on any city of a civ that has its own religion, it only ends up converting a small fraction of the population to the new religion. The AI seems to focus crazily on religion and immediately erases your efforts to convert them.

Why build missionaries, when GPs and inquisitors can wipe out their efforts in a single stroke?

The only time I ever find them useful is as a first purchase right after I found my religion - to spread that religion to my other cities as early as possible. Other than that, they just seem to be a waste when I could be getting a quicker GP instead.

1. Inquisitors do not work outside your cities, ou can't inquisit other nation's cities. Making them strictly defensive religious unit.

2. Prophets take time to spawn, and is another whole arguement as to where the hell they come from in zealous nations (Maya, Austria, Poland etc.) But they are BOTH a Missionary AND an inquisitor, thus giving them ability to eradicate and convert up to 6 citizens (on Quick)

3. Missionaries however move VERY fast and can be upgraded (cheaper purchase via both Policy Tree in BNW and certain religious beliefs) and stuff like that.

Well like you said it is useful for spreading to low pop cities quickly. Also cost of Great Prophets get increasingly higher, so if it is a choice between a 300 faith missionary or a 1200+ prophet...

Also, there is a Reformation belief -- Evangelism (Missionaries' Spread Religion action erodes existing pressure from other religions) -- that turns missionaries into mini-Great Prophets. They are not as powerful as Great Prophets (since they only erode some existing pressure, not all of it), but much more powerful than garden-variety missionaries.

Missionaries generally work best (and are more cost-effective) early in the game, before religious pressure has built in other cities. A common approach would be to spawn your 200-faith and 300-faith Great Prophets to found and enhance your religion, and buy missionaries during the Medieval and Renaissance eras, when their cost caps at 300 faith apiece, to spread to nearby city-states and neighbors. Buying missionaries also delays your 500, 800, etc. faith Great Prophets until later in the game when you need their strength.

Be wary of trying to convert a religion that has the 'Unity of Prophets' reformation belief, even an inquisitor in a captured holy city can't shift that.

They're not terrible but their usefulness really depends on your policy/belief choices and meta game.

- you can commit by adopting policy that reduces their purchasing cost, and beliefs that increase their strength. Great Mosque of Djenne also increases their potency. With these buffs missionaries will start looking attractive. Using Great Prophet to spread religion is fine, but if you are heavily dipped into piety, you'd probably want to plant holy sites to get the gold and culture bonus.

- if your neighbors lack religion, it's a good sign to use missionaries since you know your religion wouldn't have competition, and will spread fast. On the other hand, if your neighbors have religion, and worse, have adopted piety, then you know your missionaries will not be as effective. In this case I generally safeguard my own religion and don't buy missionaries at all.

- if there's still religion that can be found and your neighbors have pantheon, there will risks involved when using your missionaries on them since if they found a religion then their new religion will replace your religion, firstly and immediately in their capital.

- sometimes I consider buying missionaries for CS quest. 200 faith for potentially 2 CS quests give you good influence points. Can give boost to your culture / net you the CS luxury which trigger love the king day or other CS quests into domino effects


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TheologiaCrucis said:

Please let me know if I am doing something wrong, here..

It seems to me that missionaries are just terrible units and a waste of faith points. They simply cannot compete with the awesome power of Great Prophets.

Whenever I use a missionary on any city of a civ that has its own religion, it only ends up converting a small fraction of the population to the new religion. The AI seems to focus crazily on religion and immediately erases your efforts to convert them.

Why build missionaries, when GPs and inquisitors can wipe out their efforts in a single stroke?

The only time I ever find them useful is as a first purchase right after I found my religion - to spread that religion to my other cities as early as possible. Other than that, they just seem to be a waste when I could be getting a quicker GP instead.

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You are correct!

I usually buy one after enhancing, so I can spread to expo2 and 3.
If you want to do more than this - you should start by taking Pilgrimage as founder (instead of Tithe) and 30% cheaper missionaries. After that you can get fast missionaries and spread to a huge amount of cities very fast. Works best with religious civ + good faith based pantheon.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but some of the religious beliefs (tithe) work regardless of whether your religion is the majority, so sometimes it helps being able to get a few followers in cities without converting them, and taking the resulting diplo hit. If you can get your religion in a bunch of cities, that tithe gold really adds up.

Missionaries can be terrible at times, but prophets can be worse.

Missionaries are most efficient when the target city only has pantheons and not other religions.

Great Prophets are most efficient with the target city already has a majority religion (that's different from yours).

I only use missionaries on cities that don't have a religion yet.

Missionaries aren't that terrible, really. Inquisitors with missionaries spreading religion in local cities can keep your religion running no matter how bad the great prophets converted your cities.

As Browd points out, missionaries are only cost-effective early in the game. It is tempting to buy them so long as they are half (or less) than the cost of GP: 2 spreads versus 4, plus better mobility. But that math misses when cities already have follows. A GP spread is equal to an inquisitor bomb (which one can't normally deploy on foreign cities) plus a missionary spread. So, excepting mobility, a GP == 2x Missionary + 4x Inquisitor. So mid/late game, stick with GP until they are 6x the cost of missionaries. (At that point, you have other Great People for faith buying, so prolly why bother...)

reddishrecue said:

Missionaries aren't that terrible, really. Inquisitors with missionaries spreading religion in local cities can keep your religion running no matter how bad the great prophets converted your cities.

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This is needed as you conqueror, but it should be the rare case where you have to inquisitor/missionary bomb your own core cities. Inquisitors are better used proactively as defense against GP and missionary spam, but that does not consume them.

reddishrecue said:

Missionaries aren't that terrible, really. Inquisitors with missionaries spreading religion in local cities can keep your religion running no matter how bad the great prophets converted your cities.

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Or just park the Inquisitor next to the city the AI most wants to convert to keep it from being converted in the first place.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Each unit you buy makes the cost go up for the next unit of that kind. GP's get pretty expensive if you use them exclusively.

GP's can be used for other things like starting the religious (required, so that burns one right there), enhancing the religion, and creating a holy site.

Missionaries are adequate when there is no religion already established.

My conclusion would be to only use missionaries on your own cities, or cities that have nothing established. They can be pretty useless when trying to convert a city that already has something. You'll probably have to use GP for them. Just try to remember not to waste GP's on your own cities, or cities that are easily convertible.

GP's are basically a big sledgehammer that slice their way through adverse religious conditions, but they come in limited quantity and are expensive. 1200 faith for that 5th prophet is an awful lot of faith, when Missionaries+inqs can often accomplish the same task for cheaper. There are other things you can do with that faith, along with other things you can do with both GPs and missionaries.

tetley said:

GP's are basically a big sledgehammer that slice their way through adverse religious conditions, but they come in limited quantity and are expensive. 1200 faith for that 5th prophet is an awful lot of faith, when Missionaries+inqs can often accomplish the same task for cheaper. There are other things you can do with that faith, along with other things you can do with both GPs and missionaries.

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Yeah, you get what you pay for. Don't go to Ruth's Chris is you just want chicken tenders and fries. (Don't use GP's just to convert your own cities early on)

If you focus on faith more by putting a great prophet in a sacred site along with a started religion then you could generate a whole lot of faith. Getting temples in all cities and building the grand temple in the holy shrine city can get you going with a lot more faith especially with 1 or 2 sacred site tiles. Building purchases can contribute to the amount of faith you can get.

While I've never taken full advantage of it, the Heathen Conversion reformation is a great way to bulk up an army, especially if Raging Barbarians is on.

Heathen Conversion - Missionaries convert adjacent Barbarian units to your Civ