Religion swamping...or not!

[Walter R]

So I got used to AI civs sending over their missionaries and prophets ad nauseum; and though I push to get a pantheon early I rarely bother about trying to found a religion nowadays (i.e. I only build a shrine in capital, don't chase after Stonehenge etc.)
And then in my last two or three games the AI civs have stopped bothering me at all - oh sh*t, can't found a religion but can't get converted, therefore can't buy GPs with faith any more, no Cathedrals/Pagodas etc. for me.
In current game for instance, apart from our early warring days I've had DOF and open borders more or less constantly with Monty; but only fairly recently did he bother coming in and converting a city!
Is this a new ploy that others have noticed? Or just luck of the draw?

 

[gothemasticator]

What was the geographic setup of your games?

I ask because last night's game for me was the first in ages with seemingly no influx of missionaries from other civs. But, it turned out to be just luck of the draw. The three other civs on my own continent did not found religions, so they were all converted by me. Once the world was ocean-going, Portugal showed up, and shortly after, an endless string of missionaries.

On a side note, made me start imagining new SPs: Blood of the Martyrs, etc. - to get some fun out of capturing and killing foreign missionaries.

 

[Shimmler]

Too bad there's no setup in advanced options regarding the amount of religions that can be founded.

 

[Walter R]

What was the geographic setup of your games?

I ask because last night's game for me was the first in ages with seemingly no influx of missionaries from other civs. But, it turned out to be just luck of the draw. The three other civs on my own continent did not found religions, so they were all converted by me. Once the world was ocean-going, Portugal showed up, and shortly after, an endless string of missionaries.

On a side note, made me start imagining new SPs: Blood of the Martyrs, etc. - to get some fun out of capturing and killing foreign missionaries.

Well the game map was continents, so fair enough that some of the likely suspects (Pacal, Boud) would have had to wait until they were ocean-going; but the game is in the last stage now (about T1000 on marathon) and Monty was the only one who even bothered and that about 50 turns ago!

 

[phillipwyllie]

I've had this in bnw where I didn't found a religion. I expected to be spammed but was not. I would be nice to have a button in the diplo screen asking a civ to convert your cities.

 

[Barghaest]

I've noticed this as well, since I started playing BNW the AI don't try to convert my cities, just spam after CS. I believe they won't hit a major civ's cities unless they have a war benefit belief or you've hit their cities with missionaries. Since I never try to aggressively convert those with a religion (just use pressure) I don't really need to keep Inquisitors around much anymore. Back when G&K first came out I had to keep them stationed in all my pop 10+ cities, now I keep one on hand near Holy City and that's it. I'll spawn one if passive pressure is getting too much on a city to use immediately, but that's it. AI is less aggressive with missionaries in BNW it seems.

 

[GoStu]

I've had this in bnw where I didn't found a religion. I expected to be spammed but was not. I would be nice to have a button in the diplo screen asking a civ to convert your cities.

this would be really, really nice to have for those situations where you're letting your neighbor handle your religion.

I can't imagine the AI ever saying no though haha.

 

[phillipwyllie]

In my current game I've not managed to found a religion(again). I've let Boudicca, Maria, and Theodora have open borders and it's fun to watch them "fight" over converting my cities. I even had some tourism for a brief moment when Korea converted one of my cities.

 

[EK834]

I've got an Emperor/small continents game recently where I was the only one of the four civs (Songhai, Shoshone, Iroquois) on my continent without a religion. I had DoF with all three, I opened borders early and through the whole midgame (I most wanted the one with swords into plowshare, but they all would have had benefits to me) but the only missionary I saw entered my borders and came within 2 tiles of my 30 pop Venice and turned around and went to convert a two pop island city...

What puzzled me most was the Askia kept sending missionaries to Bismarck despite suffering from attrition, while ignoring my cities despite open borders.

It was an odd game.

 

[Holyhesk]

Got a little question about Religion.

There is a belief that gives you i think it's +2 Happiness from cities with 5 followers, can't remember the name.

If i send a missionary/prophet to another Civ and convert his city to my religion, do i get the +2 Happiness from it or will the other Civ?

 

[phillipwyllie]

If it's founder, you. If it's follower then both. AFAIR the +2 happiness/5 followers is a founder belief.