Removing Holy Cities?

[Wuddel]

I guess I missed it, but am I dreaming that you could not remove the "Holy City" pressure for good with an Inquisitor at G&K release.

No one suspects the Spanish inquisition I guess....

 

[GoldenShadow]

I think if you conquer the enemy's holy city and use an inquisitor from your own religion, it will wipe out the holy city from making any more pressure. You may also need to wipe out the rest of the religion to accomplish this.

 

[Louis XXIV]

It can still come back, even after an Inquisitor. Although I'm not sure what'll happen if you leave a second one parked in the city.

 

[pittbully]

I just achieved this last night with an inquisitor and a great prophet. Took the city, dropped the inquisitor, and quickly used the gp to convert nearby city states as well as two of my own that were converted earlier. An inquisitor alone can't do it if there is any pressure of said religion on the holy city.

I should add that the gp was able to make.my religion the majority in each city he visited...

 

[kingofsealand]

i dont think it matters even if you do what was described above, setting up an inquisitor in the holy city and then using great prophets in every city around it wont change the fact that its the holy city for its religion. It may not show as having any followers of the faith for several turns when you highlight it but they will come back with a fury.

 

[Talcove]

I was once in a multiplayer game and the Celts were involved. they founded a religion early on, but for some reason they founded it in their second city rather than their capitol. They later declared war on me and I captured their holy city, and I was able to raze it! With that, and a few religious units, I was able to wipe their religion off of the map, permanently.

 

[kingofsealand]

i thought your holy city was always your capital?? i suppose you could move your first GP to a different city and found it there, but i thought that holy cities also could not be razed. Change as of BNW maybe? Either way im definitely interested in trying that out but getting a civ to found it elsewhere seems like it could be challenging

 

[Elric445]

If you use a Great Prophet on the HC, it wont say it is a holy city anymore. But if they acquire enough faith they can purchase a great prophet again. However, by the time they can afford one you should be able to have enough pressure on the city so it will be easy to suppress.

 

[MeowthLover]

In my experience, it seems like you have to remove all followers in all cities before using a Great Prophet or inquisitor in the holy city to fully remove the religion and prevent it from reappearing again.

 

[Worlds_Crossing]

i thought your holy city was always your capital?? i suppose you could move your first GP to a different city and found it there, but i thought that holy cities also could not be razed. Change as of BNW maybe? Either way im definitely interested in trying that out but getting a civ to found it elsewhere seems like it could be challenging

It has always been like that, as the holy city is founded in the city the GP is stationed at and that tends to be at the capital, what with it being unrazeable and the tendency for the GP to pop there.

I can see a few reasons not to found your religion at your capital, but it is generally better and safer to found it there.

 

[Arte_Et_Marte]

I think holy cities put 30'ish pressure on themselves, so if you can manage that and remove the pressure from their surrounding cities you should be good. So realistically you either need Great Prophets, or conquer the rest of their cities and use inquisitors and missionaries.

 

[pittbully]

i dont think it matters even if you do what was described above, setting up an inquisitor in the holy city and then using great prophets in every city around it wont change the fact that its the holy city for its religion. It may not show as having any followers of the faith for several turns when you highlight it but they will come back with a fury.

I don't know, some forty turns later and it remains untainted by celtic catholicism hehe. The trick here is to sandbag what units you need (perhaps a gp, two missionaries and an inquisitor or two) and sweep the religion in one massive religious cleansing. I believe i had one city state that i couldn't convert because I miscounted but rather than being in a pocket of catholicism, its now surrounded by cities following shinto. I can't remember if a gp spreads four or five times, but i did use a gp or a missionary in the catholic holy city. This was all in a span of about 10-15 turns (sure helps when your dropping 50plus faith a turn)...

 

[BluegrassGeek]

Yeah, I started a game as Russia and decided to put my GP in my second city. It's closer to a bunch of city states and two AI civs, so it put a lot more pressure on them.

I also used a GP to wipe out Venice's faith in its capital city, but it came back after a while. I just managed to get my faith voted as the World Religion, so that might help flip things a bit.

 

[Ryoga]

Uh... it never happened to me that a holy capital regained its status after I removed it with an Inquisitor.
Great Prophets and Missionaries? Sure those don't work, but Inquisitors should.

 

[sonicandfffan]

As someone who focuses on religion I am very familiar with this.

A great prophet will wipe out all followers of other religions and install yours in pretty much any city, including a holy city. However, a holy city will still experience its internal pressure of +30 after using a great prophet although this will only be visible once the religion has 1 follower in that city. Note that if your religion exerts more than +30 on the city it will never flip back through pressure, although they can still generate their own great prophet to flip it back.

If you conquer the city and the city is the only city of that religion, you can use your inquisitor on it you will remove the internal holy city pressure permanently.

 

[pilot00]

Remember this also: Even you effectively wipe out a holy city by exterminatus (inquisitor)
if the civ in question is still alive and even if you convert all of their cities to another religion and still have faith generating buildings, eventually they will spawn a prophet of their own religion, even though it is effectively dead.

 

[cairnsy44]

In my current game as Poland, I have conquered Constantinople, the holy city for Eastern Orthodoxy. I have founded Protestantism. Byzantium was left with one decent sized city (Nicea) and two tiny ones. There was quite the battle for religion after the real war ended. I had used a prophet to remove their religion from all of their cities. Eventually I see a Byzantine GP wandering into my lands and then hits two of her former cities, turning them back to EO. Luckily for me, I had a very widely followed religion and GP of my own came shortly after. This would happen a few times. They would send one in and then mine would repair the damage. Eventually, after I requested she stop sending her prophets into my lands. She refused, I took Nicea and that was it for Eastern Orthodoxy as her last two cities had little faith production.

 

[pilot00]

In my current game as Poland, I have conquered Constantinople, the holy city for Eastern Orthodoxy. I have founded Protestantism. Byzantium was left with one decent sized city (Nicea) and two tiny ones. There was quite the battle for religion after the real war ended. I had used a prophet to remove their religion from all of their cities. Eventually I see a Byzantine GP wandering into my lands and then hits two of her former cities, turning them back to EO. Luckily for me, I had a very widely followed religion and GP of my own came shortly after. This would happen a few times. They would send one in and then mine would repair the damage. Eventually, after I requested she stop sending her prophets into my lands. She refused, I took Nicea and that was it for Eastern Orthodoxy as her last two cities had little faith production.

Yeah I learned this almost the same way. I had the Celts and trashed Hiawatha, leaving him with a tundra and ice block city on the north Pole. I removed the holy city from his capital and converted his cities to follow my religion. 400 turns later up and comes a prophet and tries to convert the puppets back...I was what the hell?

I think Brawd, told me it was supposed to be feature and not a bug as to allow a civ from effectively loosing their religion completely. Though how it works for the actual human player I have no idea.

 

[Glieze]

Holy cities have 30 pressure of their own religion on themselves, always. You can convert the city to a different religion with a prophet, and if you have converted enough nearby cities so that they have more pressure on the holy city that IT has on ITSELF, then it will stay converted. If not, it will slowly regain it's own religion.

 

[pilot00]

Holy cities have 30 pressure of their own religion on themselves, always. You can convert the city to a different religion with a prophet, and if you have converted enough nearby cities so that they have more pressure on the holy city that IT has on ITSELF, then it will stay converted. If not, it will slowly regain it's own religion.

Problem is time and the pressure it will excert to the surrounding cities. In order to fully convert a capital that way you need at least 5 cities in a tight cluster and even that will take a huge number of turns. Not that it wont happen but it requires a big amount of time and timing.