how do you deal with Religious Zealots?

[cairnsy44]

You have founded a religion and another civ starts spamming missionaries and sending prophets out and you ask them to stop. They say "ok" but next thing you know, their prophet converts one of your cities.

I usually take this as a eventual war declaration. I may not be ready to wipe said civ out, but I usually do. That said, once I do, I feel I am locked in to the domination win as a goal. I am going to get the hate. But what about a different target VC? What would you do?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

If you want to really play with religion, go piety.

Get reformation belif evanglism, and holy orders.
Build alot of missionaries.
Convert them all and they can't convert you.
Get rediculus bonues and win.

However one easy way is just to keep inqusitors in each of your cities so they can't be converted however I like the missionary route more because it will help you more.

 

[chazzycat]

well keep in mind that most of the warmonger penalties are now applied to city conquering, not DOWing. The diplomatic effect of declaring war, killing some missionaries, and making peace again is pretty manageable as long as you don't conquer any cities. Even the civ you DOW'd will forgive you 50 turns later IIRC.

if you have good faith output, it's usually worth it to buy at least 1 inquisitor after your higher priority faith buys and just park him in the city closest to that AI. You typically need something to spend faith on to avoid getting that last prophet before entering industrial anyway. (you want the faith counter to be as high as possible when entering industrial).

you can also block off your cities with units, this is an easy way to block prophets since they only have 2 movement, it can be done with only a few units. for missionaries this gets tough though, you basically have to surround your cities.

 

[cairnsy44]

So you prefer not to war with them but just counter them with manipulation of your own religious units?

 

[chazzycat]

probably a combination...there are always other factors in play.

timing is a big one of course, sometimes DOWing is the only option if you don't have enough units or an inquisitor yet.

If you have low happiness and are relying on lux trades from that AI, obviously going to war is not the best option though.

Using units to block off a prophet means your army is out of position, which might be a bad idea.

Et cetera.

 

[GoStu]

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

The real zealots will never, ever stop, even if it'd be to their benefit to give up and find something else to do with all the Faith.

 

[DemonMaster]

If I start next to for example Ethiopia, then I simply skip the religion game and bend over

 

[Jampine]

Really the only way I can find to deal with them is to KILL ZEM. KILL ZEM ALL. Once they get hooked, there's no way to stop the spam, even foes I've ruined their shot at winnig still spam me, but if I killed them now, everyone would hate me (more then they do already)

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Plant Inquisitors in youre biggest following cities (except rivals, unfortunately), these will prevent enemy from missionary spamming you, including Prophets, as they won't be able to to conver any cities. Now, when I mean Plant, don't use them there, just place them and put them on Idle/Alert/Sleep on the City tile.

 

[reddishrecue]

You can place units in every tile around your holy city to prevent your religion from being destroyed. Any unit, worker, great person, scout or military. This goes for water tiles as well since religious units can embark and still get to convert your city.

 

[redwings1340]

Countering zealots? Get some marines and have them stand above a cliff. Also, wall off with supply depots and a barracks, and they won't be able to touch you.

More seriously, TheBigKingOfOz has the right idea. Get an inquisitor to go around your cities and try to have him in any cities that any enemy missionaries or prophets are close to. Deny open borders to them and their prophets will get weak in your land, and converting you will be a pain for them. Also, try not to convert their lands directly unless you have an immediate reason for it. It's a waste of resources (it's easy for them to convert their own lands back), and it makes them far more likely to spam you with their missionaries.

If you got the last religion and don't really have much faith or enough of a military to crush your opponents, sometimes it's easier and more productive to just give up and take their religion. If you're in this position though, you probably aren't in a very good spot for the game.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I agree with TheKingofBigOz. Strategically located Inquisitors are the way to go. The AI only really targets your capital or other large cities. You only need a few.

 

[reddishrecue]

Inquisitors could be good against prophets that try to do mass conversions in your empire. Missionaries are easier to slow since they suffer from atrition sometimes.

 

[Zabadanov]

If I start next to for example Ethiopia, then I simply skip the religion game and bend over

This scenario happened to me, and it was not bad as it sounds, I was playing Mighty Assyr, religion was not a priority, so I didn't found one, but Ethiopia founded Ortodox Christianity with monasteries pagodas and sacred sites, converted the whole continent, killed them after that, and carried on the legacy of the East Roman patriarchs But if religion spammer picks crapy beliefs you are screwed.

 

[GoStu]

Countering zealots? Get some marines and have them stand above a cliff. Also, wall off with supply depots and a barracks, and they won't be able to touch you.

Great advice, Just don't forget to bring SCV's if you need them, and get a Bunker if he follows up with a Stalker.

 

[sendos]

It's not all bad. In my current Immortal Poland game, I got my religion after Russia, my neighbour, who is a bit of a religious zealot. Russia converted one of my cities, but I didn't mind because she had religious buildings to offer (mosques and cathedrals). Then the Indians converted that same city after I built the religious buildings. And they had sacred sites and pagodas, which also benefits followers so in turn thanks to the Indians, I got 6 tourism straight off the bat.

 

[Talcove]

With a nuke.
Unless I'm not in the appropriate era yet, in which case I just pillage all of their tile improvements. They're going to burn in hell anyway, may as well speed up the process.

 

[Callonia]

Close borders, set up inquistors, if you don't feel like spending the faith and rather build the pagodas instead.... dow them then stay in permawar then proceed as normal as you kill their armies that approach you from time to time and slay any missionaries, etc until you enter the industrial era or something.

Personally, I prefer the permawar option, saves even more gpt that would be spent on idle inquistors.

Permawar tend to answer so many problems for me.

 

[redwings1340]

Great advice, Just don't forget to bring SCV's if you need them, and get a Bunker if he follows up with a Stalker.

Also, sensor towers are really good at censoring dangerous talk that comes when Marines get stimmed up. You can get those to keep your army atheist and out of worshipping Aiur.

 

[reddishrecue]

It's not all bad. In my current Immortal Poland game, I got my religion after Russia, my neighbour, who is a bit of a religious zealot. Russia converted one of my cities, but I didn't mind because she had religious buildings to offer (mosques and cathedrals). Then the Indians converted that same city after I built the religious buildings. And they had sacred sites and pagodas, which also benefits followers so in turn thanks to the Indians, I got 6 tourism straight off the bat.

Sacred sites is neat since it gives +2 tourism per religious building purchase.