Missionary Limit:
3 was too few, especially on larger maps. In some cases, you could spend up until the point where you get secular just trying to keep your religion spreading within your own borders (on some speeds)! There was back and forth discussion -- we wanted to remove the limit (and thought it was artificial), but wanted to make sure the player/AI wouldn't spam units. For instance, one of the more extreme suggestions was an increasing mantenance cost (0 gold for the first 3, then 3 gold per unit for the next 3, then 6 gold per unit..etc.). We ultimately settled on the 1 gold maintenance.
Sounds like the issue is not that players want it to be a national unit again because of play style, but rather, because the AI is mass/over producing missionaries, slowing gameplay, and crippling economy?
@ Afforess: Maybe we can tweak the AI to implement some of this logic:
Only produce missionaries for the following reasons:
- They have cities that currently don't have the state religion they want to spread the religion to
- They are trying to convert their neighbors to said religion, so the missionaries are being sent there.
Stop producing:
- If there are no valid targets or plans to use the missionaries
- If there's more than 1 missionary in a city idle