160 Religious Pressure?

I am playing as Carthage and India was killing me religious-wise, so I finally had to go to war.

I took Delhi and am slowly waiting to get a Great Prophet (I have an Inquisitor to seal the deal after that). But Delhi is putting out 160 pressure. It is affecting my cities way far away. For instance, my capital Carthage was getting 60 pressure, but now it's down to about 30.

Since I last took the screenshot I've purchased a few temples to boost up my religion, but it's still going to take 10 turns to get a great prophet. By the way things are going, Delhi (which I puppeted) is going to wipe all that out.

Have you guys/gals ever seen the religious pressure like 160? The second screenshot showed what India had (he has Hinduism).

EDIT: It's more like 30 turns or something

Wowsers, I've never really seen much above 60 or 70 honestly.

Me neither. I ended up rage-quitting. Finally got my GP and used it. And then used my Inquisitor to seal the deal. I ended up with SIX pressure. That is a bunch of crap.

And then, of course, France attacked me with about 10 artillery and that was it. I held my own and probably could have negotiated peace, but that only SIX pressure ticked me off. I spent over 2 hours to get a GP and stuff and that was it?

Other cities are at 100+ pressure with Hinduism, and it's ridiculous.

I mean, I took out the holy city and used my GP AND Inquisitor and I only get SIX pressure?

I did a rough tally of the Hindu pressure (adding cities together). I was facing over 1,400 pressure.

Like I said--I rage quit.

Religious Texts is very powerful. After you discover printing press, it increases pressure by 68%. And the pressure on a city is determined by the other cities in range.

So, for example, if there are 5 cities in range, each with 20 followers, I think that's 100 pressure on a city. With Religious Texts and Printing Press, it would be ~168 pressure. (I'm not really sure on the exact value of pressure per follower)

I think what makes it confusing is that you removed his religion completely. If there was even 1 Hindu follower in that city it would probably have had a pressure of like 130 from the surrounding Hindu cities.

Since you didn't have religious texts, and probably didn't have any cities nearby with your religion as the majority, and probably had less followers than before you removed his religion, you were getting much much less followers. Removing a heresy doesn't convert *all* the population to your religion. I think the way it works is this: If there is at least 1 follower in the city, removing a heresy makes your religion the majority religion. (IE suddenly you have half the population in followers)

Since he probably had 90% of the population as followers before you did that, all this together explains why your pressure was so low. Also, it was his Holy City, which might have extra pressure.. Not sure.

Translation: Don't send inquisitors deep into the heart of another religion's territory.

I find that the best way to spread religion is to use missionaries first. Inquisitors are only valuable in large cities already pressured by your religion. But even then, it's not useful unless your religion is already pressuring that city. Holy cities are kind of an exception though. I tend to think it's worth using the inquisitor there just to make it *not* a Holy City anymore. But don't expect much pressure out of just one city, regardless.

Edit: Actually the best way to spread religion is to capture small cities near your borders. Reducing the population makes it easier to convert. ;-)

Also, Religious Texts is totally awesome. Use it before they use it on you. ;-)

You have to take Gandhi out completely to stop his religion from recovering though.

Thanks Cromagnus for your explanation and details I was very confused because because I took over Delhi and I only had SIX pressure and he still had 130 afterwards.

I've since taken over and totally wiped out Ghandi, but his religious pressure is still killing me. It's not as bad and is ebbing, but it's still in the 100s.

And--Moriarte--I just took him out--I actually destroyed him and took Ghandi entirely out.

I'm now -2 happiness, but I was on a roll and I totally wiped him out.

I normally leave a cit with a crap city, but Ghandi ticked me off too much in this game.

Now to take care of Rome who has backstabbed me repeatedly this game....And then Denmark

Religious Texts is my favourite enhancer. With Printing Press it's even more awesome. I personally reached over 160 pressure(i think it was near 200) in a mp game.

Almost all cities in the world were converted and even holy sites were in difficulties

I wiped him out, but I'm still getting murdered on religious pressure. Another 20 turns or so and I can get a GP and hopefully end this madness.

You basically need to wipe the religion out of all nearby cities at the same time for it to stop recovering immediately everywhere. Pretty pointless/expensive.

Cromagnus said:

Religious Texts is very powerful. After you discover printing press, it increases pressure by 68%. And the pressure on a city is determined by the other cities in range.

So, for example, if there are 5 cities in range, each with 20 followers, I think that's 100 pressure on a city. With Religious Texts and Printing Press, it would be ~168 pressure. (I'm not really sure on the exact value of pressure per follower)

Click to expand...

Pressure isn't per follower; it's per city. Holy city has 30 pressure internally, and 6 pressure baseline on other cities within a 10 tile radius, and each other city with the same majority religion (only majority religion cities exert pressure on other cities) exerts 6 pressure baseline on every other city within 10 tiles, including the holy city. So, a garden-variety Holy City (without religious texts) that has three majority religion cities within 10 tiles will have 48 pressure (30 internal + (3 x 6) external) and the other cities (assuming they are all within 10 tiles of each other) will be at 18 pressure (3 x 6 external, with no internal pressure). With religious texts, the external pressure number is boosted 34% (to 8 pressure) and then another 34% (to 10 pressure) after printing press.

To get to the 160 pressure the OP observed in India's holy city, there were probably 13 cities within a 10-tile radius of the Holy City, each exerting 10 pressure (30 Holy City internal pressure plus 130 external pressure). That's a fairly densely concentrated set of cities, but it is certainly possible. Attached is a simple graphic illustrating ICS-like city placement -- there are 18 cities within 10 hexes of the central city, and this is certainly not optimized; with some fiddling, I bet you could fit a few more within 10 tiles.

Why quit? Couldn't you just have ignored religion and work on winning the game? Religion can be a means to an end but nothing more. Working on a powerful military, beakers, production, culture and/or gold are more important than dominant religion (which is not a victory condition).

You probably just need to roll with it at that point. By the time you could reestablish your own religion, you'd have invested so much time/so many resources in it that it doesn't seem worthwhile. You DO get bonuses from foreign religions in your own cities, just no founder bonuses for them.

@Buccaneer: I ended up continuing to play. I had saved turns, and my last save was a turn or two from when I quit. I am continuing to play. It was just very frustrating at the time to see my religion suddenly being wiped out.

@Drawmeus: Good points. It would be way too expensive and take too long to get GPs to stop the spread of that religion. It is slowly ebbing but still too powerful.

@Browd: Thanks for the explanation. I think India had spread it's religion to 12 cities (including Rome). I had several Rome cities converted to my religion, as well as a few City States, but Ghandi had grabbed "Religious Texts" before me.

So now, I've got clear my continent of Denmark and Rome. This ought to be fun

I have been wondering about the mechanics of pressure. I know about the pop-distance thing, but could not figure out how/why their pressure was always so much greater. I tend to implement beliefs which yield some practical value like culture or gold so RP is often less than the AI's. I was starting to think there was also a time element involved, but it is probably more like time allows for lots of pagodas or cathedrals or whatever.

A few games ago when I started expanding onto a continent I ran into Carthaginian (I think) cities with 120 pressure which grew as I drove deeper. I cant recall what it was in her Holy City, but I do recall 160-170 in the cities near Carthage. If it did not take so long to load a game, I'd go hunting for a save to see if Religious Texts were in her list.

As far as I know, on Quick, the base pressure for the Holy City is +45 per turn FOR the Holy City, and +9 for any adjacent city within 10 radius.

So it's +9 pressure for I believe each city that has majority religion. so it would be +18 for two cities within 10 tiles radius etc.

Byzantium, religious texts bonus, itinerant preachers enhancer, ICS. I've had 250 pressure easy in my cap before standard speed, and I messed up the ICS a bit, it could have been even higher. That game I played on a cramped huge pangea, over 100 cities followed (with tithe), no-one else had more than 4. Admittedly I handpicked the map (as I was testing the concept) and lucked out with GBR and took one with nature to start, but that game really worked PoC some!

Well--I started a new game and managed to grab the "texts." Holy crap--that is powerful. I am churning out 140 pressure in my capital. I have three cites and have also converted two CS's.

Theodora is my "neighbor" to the south and my religion is killing her.

Speaking of Theodora--am I the only one who hates her? All she does is beg for stuff. And--I was in need of a research agreement and agreed to open borders with her. What do you think she does? She sends a settler and swordsman to settle in a spot just north of me. I blocked her for a good dozen turns or so, and then finally had to buy a settler, get there, and buy up all the land.

She is not happy and has denounced me.

I've got 10 artillery moving in on her butt

But--back to the topic--her "holy" city is 120 pressure of MY religion, and she is only spitting out 20 for hers. That text thing is great!

Religious pressure against an opponent would only be meaningful if you are getting something out of your religion from its spread. What are your other beliefs?

^^nothing to write home about. My pantheon was oral tradition, and one of my founder beliefs is papal primacy. The others are pagodas and swords to plowshare.

I figured the resting place with CSs would be helpful. And I took "texts" to avoid what happened in my other game.

I've been playing a game as Spain where I settled Seville next to Uluru, so have had lots of faith throughout the game. I have been aggressively (and successfully) spreading my religion, so it now extends to 34 cities:

Very little of the spread was manual through missionaries or great prophets, since I have religious texts to push it along. (I went Liberty rather than Tradition, and have founded 7 of my own cities; the two growth-enhancing religious beliefs are to compensate for not taking Tradition.)

Even so, the pressure from the holy city of Madrid is only 110:

I assume that to get to 160 you have to push the city population a lot higher than it is right now....