2nd Prophet

What do you usually do with your second great prophet, enhance or use it to spread?

 

Enhance. If you want to spread early, use a missionary. I usually go Prophet(to found) -> Missionary -> Prophet(to enhance).

 

I use it to enhance. Playing immortal, and the AI tends to enhance their religion fairly quickly, so waiting too long will leave me with poor choices.

I try to time it so that I get my first prophet around turn 100-110, which usually means I can finish Hagia Sopiha the turn after.

 

The only time I would consider using it to spread rather than enhance is if my core cities have been flipped to another religion.

 

Depends on the map and other civilizations. Enhancing is obviously the best option but sometimes, when being close to a strong religion you will need to fight it off right from the get-go, and missionaries just won't cut it since the opposing religion already started its momentum so you need to eliminate it. In those cases if you can afford an Inquisitor+Missionary combo than by all means go for it, but usually you won't be able to afford that quickly enough, so instead you'll use your second prophet to replace the above mentioned combo and create some momentum for your own religion. In these cases it's highly suggested that you beeline Theology and get the Hagia Sophia so you'll get your 3rd prophet quickly enough to still enhance your religion in a decent time.

 

It all depends on how much faith I can produce and what pantheon I took. Generally I try to get a pantheon that gives me faith. Then ill buy a missionary (for 200) to get my religion spreading. Need to get the ball rolling ASAP to get the pressure out there. Then ill decide if I want to naturally get a prophet to enhance or do Hagia for a prophet.

If I feel like I can get HS ill get a couple more missionaries to keep converting cities.

More cities converted earlier > enhancing IMO.

 

I tend to enhance with my 2nd prophet, as I want to get the important beliefs. You can have a powerful religion, but it's pointless if you don't have the beliefs that will push your game plan on.

My last game I was plagued by the Celts who, as usual, got off to an early strong religion. So I ended up taking their Holy City to solve the problem...

 

You definitely want to enhance with your second prophet; if you use that one to spread your enhancer will cost 500 faith. So you're spending 800 faith to get 4 spreads and an enhance; you can get that for 700 if you go initial prophet -> missionary -> enhance -> missionary, without incrementing the GP counter. Plus missionaries move quicker; plus this way you get either the initial missionary or the enhancer quicker.

Really the question is, do you go initial prophet -> missionary -> enhance or initial prophet -> enhance -> missionary. I think most people favor the initial approach.

 

You usually want to use your second prophet to enhance, I always use the second to enhance. But there aren't really any bad choices for enhancer belief so putting it off for a missionary or two isn't such a bad idea. The only times I would actually use a second prophet to spread is if I planned on spreading before enhancing because of an early strong rival religion, and then forget to select a missionary(auto picks GP).

Good advice. I'd say this is probably one of the few reasons you would actually use a second prophet to spread.

 

I'd say there's only about 4 good enhancers. And the enhancement also includes a second follower belief. Notwithstanding that, it can be a very good idea to spread the religion before enhancing. With the way religious spread works, the only way to get a leg up (efficiently) is to be the first to spread. I think the tradeoff concerning enhancing or spreading is very well-designed for making the player think.

However, second GP is for enhancing. You can get 2 missionaries in medieval and 2nd GP for 700 faith. Or 1 missionary for 500. It will take 800 faith to get two great prophets.

 

I would say it depends on more than just this. If my scouting revealed some religion crazy civ (like Ethiopia or Egypt) i'll expend first. Sure i might be third to enhance, but then there are enough good enhancers for at least 3 religions. I might also miss the second follower belief i wanted, but i can adapt to a sub-optimal 2nd belief. The best beliefs in the world won't help me if i can't spread my religion.
This, of course is true if i have a founder belief that requires spread such as Ceremonial Burial or Tithe, if i have Interfait Dialog, i don't want to spread early. Also, if i plan to go wide (something i rarely do as i'm ratehr bad with wide), i might be less concerned cause i can have a stronger religion on my own.

As i said, a lot more is involved. I used to Enhance first, but since i started playing Immortal, i found out it's sometimes better to spread first. Depends on neighbours, founder belief, first belief, whether or not you can take benefit of any second follwoer belief or you need a specific one. I would certainly not make any "always" rule here, except for "don't spread with second prophet", early prophets are not for spreading, missionaries are.

 

Exactly.

Never do early game spread with prophets. Unlike the missionary, prophet cost doesn't increase as you advance in Eras. As such, in the late game, if you need to spread via a unit to counter some AI's spread, you can buy 3rd & 4rth prophet cheaper than the missionary cost at this point in time

Not only that but you may want to buy one to eradicate a religion after conquering a holy city which becomes absurd pricy if you spread with prophets.

 

Enhance for sure. if you use your second prophet for spread, you will wait longer for third prophet and this isn't good at all.

 

I asked because I always have a problem spreading if I don't take a faith pantheon. Another question, how do you eliminate another religion entirely? I've used GP on the holy city but it always comes back.

 

I did not know this, thank you! I suppose once holy city status is gone, if no other cities have that religion, it won't be strong enough if its surrounded by your own religion.

 

Yeah, in my Sweden LP I dicked around a little bit to see if it was worthwhile to do 3 uses(for my own cities) and then gift the Prophet to a CS since I was Sweden. Still not sure if it was worth it since there were two strong religions already established on the continent, but it probably wasn't worthwhile in hindsight.