Missionary or 2nd Great Prophet?

Cromagnus · Oct 8, 2012

So, I love Religious Texts/Itinerant Preachers, and I can't imagine risking losing it. However, it occurs to me that being the first to get out a missionary, and having him hightail it out to the frontier, could be a critical advantage in spreading your religion, maybe enough to make up for losing the best extenders for spreading religion.

Thoughts? 2nd great prophet (at 300) or missionary first? How many faith/turn before it's worth it? 20? Only delaying the extender 10 turns might make it worthwhile...

Halcyan2 · Oct 8, 2012

Cromagnus said:
So, I love Religious Texts/Itinerant Preachers, and I can't imagine risking losing it. However, it occurs to me that being the first to get out a missionary, and having him hightail it out to the frontier, could be a critical advantage in spreading your religion, maybe enough to make up for losing the best extenders for spreading religion.

Thoughts? 2nd great prophet (at 300) or missionary first? How many faith/turn before it's worth it? 20? Only delaying the extender 10 turns might make it worthwhile...

I see what you're saying. I've thought about it myself and I think it has merit.

However, I still always prefer to enhance my religion ASAP. In addition to the Enhancer belief, you also want to get the best 2nd follower belief you can.

Browd · Oct 8, 2012

You can get any number of missionaries at the faith purchase level associated with your current era (e.g., 300 in renaissance), while great prophets escalate in cost with each purchase (like other great people, albeit using a dedicated counter). So, I tend to purchase missionaries until (1) missionaries get too expensive for their value (and with Great Mosque, that value is increased by 50%, which is one reason why the AI seems to prioritize the Great Mosque over Hagia Sophia) and/or (2) I'm trying to get my religion into cities with an already established religion, where missionaries barely make a dent, but prophets roll.

In the latter case, if you have the research-boost-when-missionaries-spread belief (forget what it's called), where you are essentially turning faith into beakers, then missionaries remain viable for longer. But, since the faith-to-beakers ratio can get pretty poor late in the game as missionaries get more expensive, you can switch to prophets -- they also benefit from the science boost. But, being a prophet, they can't perform the same mission as conveniently as a missionary. With a missionary, as long as you have open borders, you can camp out next to a rival holy city with a big pop and bulb away -- the AI won't care (since your conversion efforts are futile) and you can then do it again the very next turn without having to trundle off to another city. With prophets, since they wipe clean the target city's religion, you have to move on to find another city, and in the meantime the AI is going to get real grumpy, real fast.

Also, I find that the missionary science benefit works best for non-science games. If you have opened Rationalism and are aiming for a science victory, you may well be better off saving faith to buy great scientists than spamming missionaries for smaller amounts of beakers throughout the game.

chazzycat · Oct 8, 2012

in a wide game where you really need to found and enhance early to get the best beliefs, this is my preferred route:

1) 1st prophet --> found religion (duh)
2) next 200 faith --> missionary
3) obtain next prophet via liberty finisher --> enhance religion

this way you start spreading with your missionary around the same time as you get the enhancer belief. This has been the most effective path to jump-starting religious spread for me. it comes at the cost of the liberty finisher, but, if leveraged properly, the benefits can easily outweigh that of a single wonder or bulb.

slapshot2119 · Oct 8, 2012

chazzycat said:
in a wide game where you really need to found and enhance early to get the best beliefs, this is my preferred route:

1) 1st prophet --> found religion (duh)
2) next 200 faith --> missionary
3) obtain next prophet via liberty finisher --> enhance religion

this way you start spreading with your missionary around the same time as you get the enhancer belief. This has been the most effective path to jump-starting religious spread for me. it comes at the cost of the liberty finisher, but, if leveraged properly, the benefits can easily outweigh that of a single wonder or bulb.

Huh... I usually play pretty wide and have never tried this. You certainly found a way to, regarding the original post, have your cake and eat it too. I just can't get to using the liberty finiisher on a prophet, seems less than optimal. I imagine doing so still increases the cost of the next prophet. I agree, it could be more effective than a bulb at that point in the game. Probably not a golden age, though. And if the free wonder was the Hagia Sophia, then you would get the GProphet anyway, along with 3 faith per turn, 1 GA point/turn and a maintenance free, hammer-free temple.
On a side note, If you plan on building Hagia Sophia, make sure you do so after the 200faith GProhet shows up. Costs an extra 100 faith otherwise.

Cromagnus · Oct 8, 2012

Browd said:
You can get any number of missionaries at the faith purchase level associated with your current era (e.g., 300 in renaissance), while great prophets escalate in cost with each purchase (like other great people, albeit using a dedicated counter). So, I tend to purchase missionaries until (1) missionaries get too expensive for their value (and with Great Mosque, that value is increased by 50%, which is one reason why the AI seems to prioritize the Great Mosque over Hagia Sophia) and/or (2) I'm trying to get my religion into cities with an already established religion, where missionaries barely make a dent, but prophets roll.

In the latter case, if you have the research-boost-when-missionaries-spread belief (forget what it's called), where you are essentially turning faith into beakers, then missionaries remain viable for longer. But, since the faith-to-beakers ratio can get pretty poor late in the game as missionaries get more expensive, you can switch to prophets -- they also benefit from the science boost. But, being a prophet, they can't perform the same mission as conveniently as a missionary. With a missionary, as long as you have open borders, you can camp out next to a rival holy city with a big pop and bulb away -- the AI won't care (since your conversion efforts are futile) and you can then do it again the very next turn without having to trundle off to another city. With prophets, since they wipe clean the target city's religion, you have to move on to find another city, and in the meantime the AI is going to get real grumpy, real fast.

Also, I find that the missionary science benefit works best for non-science games. If you have opened Rationalism and are aiming for a science victory, you may well be better off saving faith to buy great scientists than spamming missionaries for smaller amounts of beakers throughout the game.

I'm really only debating whether to wait until after extending my religion before spawning a missionary. That early in the game, most CS won't have any followers, and sometimes a nearby civ won't even have a religion yet, so you can immediately get 2 high pop cities. That could make a huge difference in spreading your religion. But is it worth risking the loss of an extender belief like Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers to some other religion?

Browd · Oct 8, 2012

As the prior post notes, if you want to use the Liberty finisher to get a prophet, don't just take the prophet -- take a GE with the finisher and use the GE to bulb Hagia Sophia -- you get the Great Prophet, plus a free temple, 3 faith and 1 GA point -- a much better return on your Liberty GE investment. However, if you think you can hard-build Hagia Sophia before the AI, use the Liberty GE on a better wonder.

Alternatively, playing Tradition, you might still consider taking the approach you describe if you know you are going to successfully get the GP when building Hagia Sophia or, playing the Mayans, from your first long count great person. Delaying enhancing is not great, but if you are at 200 faith and are 3 turns away on Hagia Sophia, go ahead and buy the missionary -- you weren't going to enhance until after then anyway.

tommynt · Oct 8, 2012

ALLWAYS get a missonary asap 1 city go like no pressure at - all 3 got quite some and the chain starting early is huge.

chazzycat · Oct 8, 2012

i don't take Hagia Sophia because to me the ancillary benefits (+3 faith, etc) is not worth increasing the costs of the next great person. this way only your prophet costs go up, and I generally don't care much about any prophets beyond the 2nd one.

Halcyan2 · Oct 8, 2012

Browd said:
You can get any number of missionaries at the faith purchase level associated with your current era (e.g., 300 in renaissance), while great prophets escalate in cost with each purchase (like other great people, albeit using a dedicated counter). So, I tend to purchase missionaries until (1) missionaries get too expensive for their value (and with Great Mosque, that value is increased by 50%, which is one reason why the AI seems to prioritize the Great Mosque over Hagia Sophia) and/or (2) I'm trying to get my religion into cities with an already established religion, where missionaries barely make a dent, but prophets roll.

Of course if you settle the Great Prophets as Holy Sites, that gives you more Faith to potentially make into Missionaries.

Ideally, I end up making X Great Prophets (who are settled as Holy Sites). When I am done popping Prophets I like to finish Hagia Sophia (which also increases the Prophet cost). I then switch to making Y Missionaries until Industrial, when I start to save my Faith for Z other Great People.

After enhancing your religion, you can start making missionaries ASAP, which lets you spread quickly. Or you can wait for the Great Mosque. And/or you can wait until you've settled one or two additional Prophets for more faith.

chazzycat · Oct 8, 2012

tommynt said:
ALLWAYS get a missonary asap 1 city go like no pressure at - all 3 got quite some and the chain starting early is huge.

agree - that first missionary is absolutely CRITICAL in starting the spread. waiting to enhance puts you too far behind comparatively to wait for it. If I'm playing tall I would go missionary 1st enhancer 2nd most of the time.

Dentalfury · Oct 9, 2012

For me it really depends on how much the other Civ's near me are developing their own religions and how close they are. If i'm the only person in my region that's developing one and my religion is getting decent chain pressure off of nearby CS than I usually just go with 2 prophets and enhance my religion right away. Later on I worry about missionaries for those far flung places, but it seems like if their isn't a clear cut pressure chain you will be overwhelmed by the local Civ's religion anyway.

Also, since were on the topic of the usefulness of prophets versus missionaries, how to you guys deal with Holy Cites that you've conquered? In the game i'm playing right now i'm the Celts and my religion (Druidism) is spread all over the map over 4 other Civ's. Askia, my closest neighbor, developed Islam and I ended up conquering him for other reasons anyway. Now, i'm trying to eradicate any presence of Islam in any of my newly puppeted Cities. I end up using later prophets to do a total conversion of Holy Cities but they always seem to come back at some point and restart their particular religion even though the Civ that started it isn't around anymore and there are no other followers of it anywhere.

Should I just leave a prophet or inqusitor parked nearby to keep weeding Islam out is there some other solution? Will the problem go away in the long run?

Browd · Oct 9, 2012

Only an inquisitor can purge the holy city status of a conquered holy city. Once you bulb the inquisitor in that city, no more +30 holy city internal pressure.

chazzycat · Oct 9, 2012

@dentalfury: once you have taken out the AI and they can't use prophets anymore, you should be good. typically all you have to do is convert the cities surrounding the holy city, and that should give you plenty of pressure to keep it from ever expanding again. it's just about the number of cities within 10 tiles.

kamikazees · Oct 9, 2012

tommynt said:
ALLWAYS get a missonary asap 1 city go like no pressure at - all 3 got quite some and the chain starting early is huge.

I have always enhanced first to try and get a good 2nd follower belief, but this statement gives me some pause. I'll try it this way next time.

Arachnofiend · Oct 9, 2012

The problem appears when your neighbor enhances first and picks up Religious Texts. Suddenly you're the one struggling to get your religion anywhere but your capital.

I usually go Prophet-Prophet-Inquisitor simply because if I don't park one outside my holy city an enemy prophet will come in and bomb me, which is no fun. Texts can spread my religion without any missionaries usually; unless I picked up Interfaith Dialog I usually don't even bother making missionaries, opting instead to spend my faith on my buildings.

Monthar · Oct 9, 2012

You could always get the 2nd prophet and take the enhancer that makes missionaries cheaper and buy a few of them. Then you can spread your religion where-ever you want it instead of having to wait for RT or IP to do it for you.

Also, since the coming patch will make the happiness from all the religious buildings be local happiness instead of the global happiness it is now they will be less useful. The founder belief that gives happiness for each city following the religion will remain as global, so having cheaper missionaries might be a better use of faith than the buildings.

Cromagnus · Oct 12, 2012

Monthar said:
You could always get the 2nd prophet and take the enhancer that makes missionaries cheaper and buy a few of them. Then you can spread your religion where-ever you want it instead of having to wait for RT or IP to do it for you.

Also, since the coming patch will make the happiness from all the religious buildings be local happiness instead of the global happiness it is now they will be less useful. The founder belief that gives happiness for each city following the religion will remain as global, so having cheaper missionaries might be a better use of faith than the buildings.

How does that change things? As long as you still own the city, you still get the happiness.. Why is global more useful than local? Sorry if that's a newb question.

Arachnofiend · Oct 12, 2012

You cannot have more local happiness than you do pop in the city that generates it. So if you settle a city and rush buy a Colosseum, you will only get 1 happiness from that Colosseum because you only have one pop in it.

Global happiness goes up regardless of population so, as it is now, pagoda gives 2 happiness no matter how many citizens you have in that city.

tommynt · Oct 12, 2012

ALLWAYS get a missonary asap 1 city go like no pressure at - all 3 got quite some and the chain starting early is huge.

!

why discuss obvious things?

U get 1 missonary right away and then dont bother with them at all - they are purly there to start the chain and a early chain is the strongest and largest chain.

Even religious texts wont help to stop a chain which got 6 cities allready once it is choosen

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