Why cant i manually purchase a great prophet?

Question · Sep 10, 2012

I have enough faith, but the GP isnt in my list of possible purchases from my holy city. I can see inquisitors and missionaries though.

It looks like theres a bug where auto-purchased GPs don't get +1 extra spread from the great mosque of djenne...and i was trying to avoid that by buying a GP manually.

Mesix · Sep 10, 2012

You can't buy great people until the Renaissance Era. Once you hit the Renaissance, you can only buy the great people which are unlocked by your chosen policy trees. In the case of great Prophets, you need to have Piety.

animalguy · Sep 10, 2012

I thought it was industrial when you could purchase GP manually.

Mesix · Sep 10, 2012

You're right. My mistake. It is Industrial Era.

The_Quasar · Sep 10, 2012

Mesix said:
You can't buy great people until the Renaissance Era. Once you hit the Renaissance, you can only buy the great people which are unlocked by your chosen policy trees. In the case of great Prophets, you need to have Piety.

Hmm... I've bought (with faith) Great Prophets many times without going Piety.

PhilBowles · Sep 10, 2012

Mesix said:
You're right. My mistake. It is Industrial Era.

Great Prophets have a different rule - you should always have the option to buy one once you have a religion (though if you don't but have enough unused faith they'll tend to spawn naturally). So the option should be there.

Mesix · Sep 10, 2012

Maybe that is what happened. I didn't get a religion in my last couple of games while researching very fast to hit the Industrial Era as fast as possible. I noticed that there were still religions available (1 left in the most recent game for sure) to be founded, but never generated a Great Prophet. When I went into a city, the option was available to buy a GS or a GE, but not a GP.

I know they stop spawning naturally in the Industrial Era. I'm not positive about the mechanics of purchasing.

draaibaar · Sep 10, 2012

You even can purchase a Great Prophet of your own religion in a city with another religion (industrial era).

The_Quasar · Sep 10, 2012

draaibaar said:
You even can purchase a Great Prophet of your own religion in a city with another religion (industrial era).

Are you sure? I know if you purchase a Missionary, you'll end up with one for the faith of that city, not necessarily yours. I'd assumed Great Prophets were the same...

In my experience, Great Prophets have a chance to spawn naturally every turn after you have enough faith, until you get to Industrial. You can normally buy one if it has not spawned, but you have enough faith, and in a City with the right religion, provided you have an Enhanced Religion. Once you get to Industrial, you have to buy them with faith, they won't spawn naturally.

Sherlock · Sep 10, 2012

draaibaar said:
You even can purchase a Great Prophet of your own religion in a city with another religion (industrial era).

WHAT? I thought if a city flipped religions and you bought a GP it was the new religion.

I'll have to test this.

hobbsyoyo · Sep 10, 2012

Sherlock said:
WHAT? I thought if a city flipped religions and you bought a GP it was the new religion.

I'll have to test this.

I really don't think this is true. The GP is always from the religion of city AFAIK, you don't get a choice.

The_Quasar said:
Are you sure? I know if you purchase a Missionary, you'll end up with one for the faith of that city, not necessarily yours. I'd assumed Great Prophets were the same...

In my experience, Great Prophets have a chance to spawn naturally every turn after you have enough faith, until you get to Industrial. You can normally buy one if it has not spawned, but you have enough faith, and in a City with the right religion, provided you have an Enhanced Religion. Once you get to Industrial, you have to buy them with faith, they won't spawn naturally.

You don't have a chance to spawn them. What happens is that there is a limit before the industrial era on how much faith you can have saved up. Everytime you hit that limit, a Great Prophet is born and the stored faith is used up. So there's no chance to it.

The only way to stop this is to buy things with religion to keep the stored faith low.

GAGA Extrem · Sep 10, 2012

hobbsyoyo said:
You don't have a chance to spawn them. What happens is that there is a limit before the industrial era on how much faith you can have saved up. Everytime you hit that limit, a Great Prophet is born and the stored faith is used up. So there's no chance to it.

There is indeed a CHANCE involved. I have had games where it took me three turns past 300 faith to spawn my second prophet - and since this "auto-birth" removes ALL faith after the prophet is spawned, I actually paid 330 faith. Not to mention that another CIV founded a religion one turn before that, so I lost my beloved Pagodas.

hobbsyoyo · Sep 10, 2012

GAGA Extrem said:
There is indeed a CHANCE involved. I have had games where it took me three turns past 300 faith to spawn my second prophet - and since this "auto-birth" removes ALL faith after the prophet is spawned, I actually paid 330 faith. Not to mention that another CIV founded a religion one turn before that, so I lost my beloved Pagodas.

But that doesn't necessarily mean there was chance involved. It still spawned after the prerequisite faith was earned. I'd have to know all of the other circumstances before I agreed with you on this.

GAGA Extrem · Sep 10, 2012

hobbsyoyo said:
But that doesn't necessarily mean there was chance involved. It still spawned after the prerequisite faith was earned. I'd have to know all of the other circumstances before I agreed with you on this.

What else do you need to know? My income was +10 faith per turn, no wonders like the Hagia Sophia were involved.

The easiest way to verify this is to start a game, set the "new seed" option, get some faith and save before you reach the 200 / 300 faith threshold. Load again and check how often you will get a prophet on the same turn when you hit/exceed it. It won't be 100%.

The faith tooltip does, btw., clearly state that it is a chance:

draaibaar · Sep 10, 2012

The_Quasar said:
Are you sure? I know if you purchase a Missionary, you'll end up with one for the faith of that city, not necessarily yours. I'd assumed Great Prophets were the same...

In my experience, Great Prophets have a chance to spawn naturally every turn after you have enough faith, until you get to Industrial. You can normally buy one if it has not spawned, but you have enough faith, and in a City with the right religion, provided you have an Enhanced Religion. Once you get to Industrial, you have to buy them with faith, they won't spawn naturally.

Sherlock said:
WHAT? I thought if a city flipped religions and you bought a GP it was the new religion. I'll have to test this.

hobbsyoyo said:
I really don't think this is true. The GP is always from the religion of city AFAIK, you don't get a choice.

In my last game my holy city was converted. Soon the other religion lost it's majority and from that point none of my city's did have a majority religion. I couldn't do anything with my faith. At some point in the industrial era one of my city's got another religion and I saw I could purchase all 3 religious unit's in there. I knew a missionary would be of the other religion but I tried a Great Prophet. First I saved my game because I didn' t expect it to be a GP of my own religion...but it was! I didn't have my own religion for ages (and not the yields from tithe) an this way I got it back. I was surprised as well.

hobbsyoyo · Sep 10, 2012

GAGA Extrem said:
What else do you need to know? My income was +10 faith per turn, no wonders like the Hagia Sophia were involved.

The easiest way to verify this is to start a game, set the "new seed" option, get some faith and save before you reach the 200 / 300 faith threshold. Load again and check how often you will get a prophet on the same turn when you hit/exceed it. It won't be 100%.

The faith tooltip does, btw., clearly state that it is a chance:

Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification.

Peng Qi · Sep 10, 2012

PhilBowles said:
Great Prophets have a different rule - you should always have the option to buy one once you have a religion (though if you don't but have enough unused faith they'll tend to spawn naturally). So the option should be there.

This is false. You must be in the Industrial era to purchase Great People using faith.

Also, the Great Mosque of Djenne does not affect GPs, only missionaries. Also it doesn't give +speed, just +conversions.

draaibaar · Sep 10, 2012

For those who doubt what I said in a previous post: here's the save I made before buying a GP in Akkad. Buy this GP in Akkad and next turn you can convert Akkad to my own religion! Also curious is that the GP is twice as cheap as the missionary or inquisitor.

Kwami · Sep 10, 2012

1. Great Prophets are "of the civilization", not "of the city". Thus, they always have the religion that your civilization founded. If you did not found a religion and none are available, then you cannot spawn or purchase Great Prophets.

2. You do not need to invest in the Piety tree to purchase Great Prophets, but you cannot purchase them before the Industrial Era.

3. There is most definitely a random factor involved in spawning Great Prophets. For every turn after you hit the next GP Faith threshold, there is a chance that you will spawn a Great Prophet. This chance increases with every turn until you finally spawn said GP.

4. I've read the the Great Mosque does in fact work with Great Prophets, but I've never had a chance to test this. Does anyone have concrete proof either way?

GAGA Extrem · Sep 10, 2012

Kwami said:
4. I've read the the Great Mosque does in fact work with Great Prophets, but I've never had a chance to test this. Does anyone have concrete proof either way?

Well, I can only give you my personal experience: It does. You can even use your GP once and then settle him if you have the Great Mosque.

Why cant i manually purchase a great prophet?

King

The Allfather

Ermahgerd

The Allfather

King

Deity

The Allfather

Warlord

King

Just one more turn...

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

Warlord

Deity

Emperor

Warlord

Attachments

Deity

Emperor

Similar threads