Missionary spam + Evangelism (instant Science upon spreading religion)

Evangelism (Enhancer belief): Missionary conversion strength +25%; Holy City gains Science when a Missionary spreads this Religion to cities of other Religions.

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I think this belief needs to be limited somehow; the amount of free instant Science is too powerful when missionaries are fixed-price and pretty cheap.

I'm not sure how the instant Science yield scales, but it seems to scale with number of followers of other religions. I eventually was sending herds of 4–7 Missionaries into foreign lands every few turns and spreading my religion to their Capital/Holy City (with almost all believers of another faith) and generating almost 0 followers but receiving 800 to 2000 instant Science per Spread action from each Missionary.

As you can see in the screenshots here, by turn 250-ish I was basically able to trade increments of 350Faith in for 1800(= 2 x 900)Science in this way: my Missionaries were mini-Great Scientists, only much cheaper and easier to snowball with. (Other civs were generating about 200Science per turn, for reference. This was a 6/Emperor difficulty game.)

(Admittedly, I was generating an abnormally large amount of Faith in this game because earlier Missionary spam got me ahead in techs and so my Missionaries were able to reach the other continent before any other religions, which translated into tons of yields via God-King.)

Easy ways to limit this would include

1. make Missionaries cheaper to start with, but with a small exponential Faith cost multiplier (e.g., cost for nth missionary = initial cost * 1.05^n)
2. make Missionary cost scale with number of techs researched instead of era reached
3. change scaling formula for instant Science from Evangelism (e.g., make it cap out at, say, the target Civ's per-turn Science yield)
4. just make the instant Evangelism Science yield flat (like GP instant yields) and tied to current (worldwide?) Science per turn
5. tie instant Science yield to net number of new followers generated by the Spread Religion action (so going after huge Cities without regard to actual religious effectiveness wouldn't work, and also giving further urgency to churning out Missionaries to unchurched Cities quickly)
6. institute a cooldown on Missionary buys, as has been done with Great People

Interesting. I guess the question should be asked:
Why do you gain science when sending a missionary to a city? But that's another matter.

Seems like it would make more sense to gain the same output of science that the target AI is producing, that way there could never be the huge disparity that you are highlighting.

I've picked this belief in two recent games, and just putting out that I agree, its A LOT of science. Seems like the easiest fix is just to lower the science number on it but idk. And like Reign says, its an ironic name, all the Evangelists I know are not exactly believers in science lol. But I guess there's probably some historic reason it makes sense.

This is actually way overboard. Playing a game right now and just spammed 3 missionaries on China and got 2 free techs in 2 turns that would have taken me 10 turns each to research otherwise. Converted 7/16 people. They're 170 faith each... And I'm getting 62 faith per turn. That's an unbelievable amount of science.

It's worse stacked with the fact that you can stack missionaries in the community patch. I could buy 5 of them right now, send all 5 to China and get 3 or so new techs from ~700 faith, which I recoup in 10 turns.

I've never used this ability as I don't find it a very fun ability, but you're probably right.

I actually tried it, but got bored.

pandasnail said:

I've picked this belief in two recent games, and just putting out that I agree, its A LOT of science. Seems like the easiest fix is just to lower the science number on it but idk. And like Reign says, its an ironic name, all the Evangelists I know are not exactly believers in science lol. But I guess there's probably some historic reason it makes sense.

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Actually it's only in very recent history that many scientists are non-religious. Countless scientific breakthroughs throughout history have come from not only religious laymen, but a significant number of priests, imams, and monks of various religions, but especially Catholic.

Today, it's true that there's alot of disparity between "religion" and "faith," however this has been largely pushed by the ideological blowhards of the atheist and fundamentalist movements, who make claims about Faith or Science within the framework of their own ideology to make attacks, and not actually to effect any kind of principles of religion or truths of science. While a good chunk of typical atheists and typical religious have been *affected* adversely by this war to the point of bigotry, my experience of any honest religious person or honest scientist is that while they might not agree on all things, they are fundamentally after the same answers, both seeking truth, both friendly, kind, and open to one another, and this is only if they do not believe in both Science in Faith, which they often do. If one can see past the ideological war to the essence of these two things, one realizes that there is basically nothing to fight about.

Let's not mix things.

It's not that scientist were religious people, is that only the religious people had enough money/free time to think about Nature and carry experiments in that time.
Aristocrats had both time and money, but it wasn't seen well that a person raised to be a warrior and defend its people spend its time in something so abstract as science. Upon Enlightenment, Aristocrats started to do things differently, so some of them dedicated to science (others to bussiness, while everyone dedicated to politics in some way or another). Before that, only religious people (and few richmen) could dedicate to science. (Arts were different, as some patrons paid for the artwork).

After that, we know what happens.

So, while it's true that religion allowed some people do science when nobody else could afford it, it's also true that religious dogmatism refrained the research, as any discovery had to fit into the religious revelated truth.

But we could argue that what we get in CIV are actually technologies, not science, and thus, it doesn't depend on anything of the above.

tu_79 said:

Let's not mix things.

It's not that scientist were religious people, is that only the religious people had enough money/free time to think about Nature and carry experiments in that time.
Aristocrats had both time and money, but it wasn't seen well that a person raised to be a warrior and defend its people spend its time in something so abstract as science. Upon Enlightenment, Aristocrats started to do things differently, so some of them dedicated to science (others to bussiness, while everyone dedicated to politics in some way or another). Before that, only religious people (and few richmen) could dedicate to science. (Arts were different, as some patrons paid for the artwork).

After that, we know what happens.

So, while it's true that religion allowed some people do science when nobody else could afford it, it's also true that religious dogmatism refrained the research, as any discovery had to fit into the religious revelated truth.

But we could argue that what we get in CIV are actually technologies, not science, and thus, it doesn't depend on anything of the above.

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Sure, religious dogmatism refrains science sometimes, but if you actually bother to follow any serious religion, its tenets, its canons, and how it views nature, science, and God, it's pretty plain to see that they are intertwined. Understanding "The Creation" often becomes the bottom line for understanding God; and this isn't limited to monotheisms per se, but our beloved Pantheons as well. Find me a bigoted and dogmatic person of any stripe, any religion, any non-religion, any race of any kind, that's impeding life in any way just because of his own foolishness, and find me someone who will like him apart from those who are also equally blind and stupid. Sadly, what you offer by saying "after that, we know what happens" is right in the mainstream of another ideology: because if we're going to judge anyone honestly on their accomplishments or failures, you look to the ones who were consistent with their beliefs and honored them, not the ones who didn't. Religions have dogmas, but dogmatism is the perversion of religion. Don't mix them up.

Gidoza said:

Actually it's only in very recent history that many scientists are non-religious. Countless scientific breakthroughs throughout history have come from not only religious laymen, but a significant number of priests, imams, and monks of various religions, but especially Catholic.

Today, it's true that there's alot of disparity between "religion" and "faith," however this has been largely pushed by the ideological blowhards of the atheist and fundamentalist movements, who make claims about Faith or Science within the framework of their own ideology to make attacks, and not actually to effect any kind of principles of religion or truths of science. While a good chunk of typical atheists and typical religious have been *affected* adversely by this war to the point of bigotry, my experience of any honest religious person or honest scientist is that while they might not agree on all things, they are fundamentally after the same answers, both seeking truth, both friendly, kind, and open to one another, and this is only if they do not believe in both Science in Faith, which they often do. If one can see past the ideological war to the essence of these two things, one realizes that there is basically nothing to fight about.

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Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Sorry. I have personal reasons for not liking the Red State 'evangelical Christians' I've grown up around, but I certainly shouldn't have implied that all believers of all faiths are ignorant or foolish, and I apologize for it.

When it was added it was only supposed to work once per city. All the bonus effect however all work multiple times as long as your religion doen't take over the city.

The tourism effect does the same thing BTW.

Kenpari said:

This is actually way overboard. Playing a game right now and just spammed 3 missionaries on China and got 2 free techs in 2 turns that would have taken me 10 turns each to research otherwise. Converted 7/16 people. They're 170 faith each... And I'm getting 62 faith per turn. That's an unbelievable amount of science.

It's worse stacked with the fact that you can stack missionaries in the community patch. I could buy 5 of them right now, send all 5 to China and get 3 or so new techs from ~700 faith, which I recoup in 10 turns.

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Yeah, pretty much. My reaction eventually changed from "Awesome, this is great" to "Oh... this is trivializing the game."

Incidentally, I also found during this play through that God-King is a bit easy to abuse too depending on the map and the other Religion-founders, but at least it requires a bit of skill and luck to spam Missionaries and send them around the globe. I wouldn't mind seeing that nerfed too though.

pandasnail said:

Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Sorry. I have personal reasons for not liking the Red State 'evangelical Christians' I've grown up around, but I certainly shouldn't have implied that all believers of all faiths are ignorant or foolish, and I apologize for it.

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I want to be your friend, and I want you to have many friends!!! Good religious people are awesome, and good scientists are awesome, too!

Gidoza said:

Actually it's only in very recent history that many scientists are non-religious. Countless scientific breakthroughs throughout history have come from not only religious laymen, but a significant number of priests, imams, and monks of various religions, but especially Catholic.

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You omitted the part about aforementioned priests, imams, and monks (which just happen to belong to Abrahamic religions) holding a monopoly on writing (which is quasi-essential for passing scientific knowledge between generations) and actively getting rid of pagan followers. So the chances of some ooga-booga shaman getting a spotlight on a scientific breakthrough are pretty slim in these circumstances.
That's why catholics were booty-blasted over the invention of printing press, as it essentially allowed to print books without (or even past) the close supervision of a catholic priest. It didn't however stop Bible from being the first printed book, even though before that catholics declared printing press as a literal satanic invention. I guess it a-okay to use a satanic device as long as it brings more and over plebs.

Gidoza said:

Sure, religious dogmatism refrains science sometimes, but if you actually bother to follow any serious religion, its tenets, its canons, and how it views nature, science, and God, it's pretty plain to see that they are intertwined. Understanding "The Creation" often becomes the bottom line for understanding God; and this isn't limited to monotheisms per se, but our beloved Pantheons as well. Find me a bigoted and dogmatic person of any stripe, any religion, any non-religion, any race of any kind, that's impeding life in any way just because of his own foolishness, and find me someone who will like him apart from those who are also equally blind and stupid. Sadly, what you offer by saying "after that, we know what happens" is right in the mainstream of another ideology: because if we're going to judge anyone honestly on their accomplishments or failures, you look to the ones who were consistent with their beliefs and honored them, not the ones who didn't. Religions have dogmas, but dogmatism is the perversion of religion. Don't mix them up.

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No true follower, huh?
It's either you believe in the creation of world in the 7 days, which makes you look like a big tool in the presence of dinosaur fossils, or whatever the most plausible theory of universe creation at the time of your living. They are fundamentally incompatible, so the "middle ground" exist only because you are afraid some devout follower will chop your head off (aka physical violence) if you question their beliefs.

Gidoza said:

Good religious people

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An oxymoron. Monotheistic religions are basically multi-level marketing schemes, good people won't willingly participate in them.

Strigvir, though I essentially agree with you, I realised that this is not the place to talk religion. I made the mistake to answer to Gidoza, knowing that I'll never convince him, because his post itched me a lot.
We can discuss if this belief should be enhanced or buffed for balancing reasons, where we might agree or not. But no agreement is possible when talking about the real stuff (just chopping heads ).

Moderator Action: Agreed. If you want to discuss religion in this manner, please visit OT. Let's get this thread back on track please, i.e. discussing whether or not the effects of Evangelism need to be limited in terms of balance.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

We can discuss if this belief should be enhanced or buffed for balancing reasons, where we might agree or not. But no agreement is possible when talking about the real stuff (just chopping heads).

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Except that Civilization in its essence is based upon real stuff...now sure, a game is a game is a game, so we can't take reality too strictly, but especially for a game like Civ, we can't ignore it, either. This is why Dromons exist in CBP for all Civs, yet Gazebo is simultaneously trying to be stringently faithful to what and who the Civs are. Not talking about reality in this context makes no sense.

It's either you believe in the creation of world in the 7 days, which makes you look like a big tool in the presence of dinosaur fossils, or whatever the most plausible theory of universe creation at the time of your living. They are fundamentally incompatible, so the "middle ground" exist only because you are afraid some devout follower will chop your head off (aka physical violence) if you question their beliefs.

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Er...what? Talking religion or not and whether or not we were on the same side of a discussion, I didn't resort to personal attacks or assumptions of what someone believes, because I don't believe this in the slightest. Did it occur to you to simply ASK me what I believe instead of lashing out? Good job.

Currently running a game as Spain, have half as much science output as Gamdhi, but 5 techs ahead of him before Renaissance.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=736102830
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=736103578

Gandhi actually threatened me because of the techs I've been getting.

Kenpari said:

Currently running a game as Spain, have half as much science output as Gamdhi, but 5 techs ahead of him before Renaissance.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=736102830
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=736103578

Gandhi actually threatened me because of the techs I've been getting.

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So how are you achieving this? Missionary spam?

Something to consider is that all of that faith spent building missionaries does mean less GP you can purchase in Industrial, so its not "free science". Its still good science to get for sure, but there is a counterbalance later in the game to consider.