Acolyte questions

[Plumfairy]

I had two questions about acolytes:

1) If I want to generate Holy relics for a religious cultural victory, am I correct in understanding that I should make sure my acolytes have the martyr promotion, (either by allying with Yerevan or by building Mont St Michel) then send them out to fight & die in religious wars with AI religious units? It seems kinda counter-intuitive that the goal is to literally kill my own acolytes; usually civ games reward you for keeping your units *alive*.

2) What's the point of Kongolese acolytes? The civ's special ability gives you plenty of acolytes starting in the mid-game, but they don't seem to be good for anything unless you had the foresight and/or luck to ally with Yerevan and/or build Mont St Michel... which I didn't in my current game. Sure, I can help spread the AI's religion to my other cities, but that doesn't really help me; the AI religions almost always require that you have shrines & temples for the religion to help you out. (e.g. The religious building requires a temple, both the Founding Belief and the Enhancement Beliefs only help the religion's founder, and several of the Follower beliefs only help you if you can build holy sites.... and the AI often never gets around to acquiring any Follower belief at all.)

 

[teks]

1. Yes, that's the best way to get them. Know that martyrs were a major factor in the power of early Christianity with many devout believers actively seeking to die to prove their conviction to god, which made the religion quite difficult to suppress. Since the concept is pretty counter-intuitive in that people generally try not to die, it makes sense for the mechanic to be similarly counter-intuitive.

2. Bit of a list...
* They are free
* They allow the Kongo to pick which religion they want to follow
* They allow the Kongo to fight off another religion and even prevent an opponent from achieving a religious victory.
* Kongo gets a big bonus to relics, so Martyrs are especially powerful.
* Free Scouts

As for the point of Kongo's religion. Read the leaders ability carefully. Kongo actually does gain founding beliefs. They get all beliefs of the majority religion. Your right that most these abilities aren't helpful, especially with how the AI favors their picks, but several beliefs are very strong, especially for something Kongo gets for free.
Work Ethic + Mbanza - +1% production per follower on a civ that gets houses two eras earlier. This adds up to a huge bonus.
Church Property- Free gold
Crusade- Massive +10 bonus when fighting in a foriegn city that shares your religion. Great way to kill the founder of your religion too.
Defender of the Faith- Massive +10 bonus when defending.
Papal Primacy- +50% more stuff from city states if you send your free apostles to them.
Stewardship & Law Ministry- Free stuff at districts you actually build
Reliquaries- This is Broken ATM. I'm getting 1500 faith per turn on 5 relics, so...yeah Its strong. In fact, game-breaking strong.

Among those, the ones I'm really looking for are crusades, reliquaries (if they fix it), and work ethic. When your free apostles give your military units +10 strength. Thats when you'll really love apostles.

 

[Plumfairy]

As for the point of Kongo's religion. Read the leaders ability carefully. Kongo actually does gain founding beliefs. They get all beliefs of the majority religion. Your right that most these abilities aren't helpful, especially with how the AI favors their picks, but several beliefs are very strong, especially for something Kongo gets for free.
Church Property- Free gold.

Wait a second.... in my current game one of the AI's religion has the Church Property belief, and I just triple checked: I'm definitely not getting the +2 gold in any of my 3 cities where his religion is dominant. Do I have to spread his religion so that my entire empire is converted? (i.e. make sure that his religion is dominant in at least 6 of my 10 cities)

Followup question: if an acolyte spawns for a religion that has fewer than 4 beliefs, could I send the acolyte to an AI holy site and evangelize a belief for his religion? That seems kinda.... strange. "Nice religion you got there, buddy. Mind if I pick your beliefs for ya?"

 

[Browd]

Wait a second.... in my current game one of the AI's religion has the Church Property belief, and I just triple checked: I'm definitely not getting the +2 gold in any of my 3 cities where his religion is dominant. Do I have to spread his religion so that my entire empire is converted? (i.e. make sure that his religion is dominant in at least 6 of my 10 cities)

Yes. Mvemba's unique ability is that Kongo gains "all Beliefs of any Religion that has established itself in a majority of his cities."

Followup question: if an acolyte spawns for a religion that has fewer than 4 beliefs, could I send the acolyte to an AI holy site and evangelize a belief for his religion? That seems kinda.... strange. "Nice religion you got there, buddy. Mind if I pick your beliefs for ya?"

Nope. Only the religion's founder can use an apostle to evangelize a belief.

 

[Plumfairy]

In my current Kongo game, I've spread the Church Property religion to all my cities, but it's still not giving me any income. I don't know if Kongo's ability is bugged, or if that's by design, but it looks like the founder beliefs aren't available to Kongo after all. Oh well.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Yes. Mvemba's unique ability is that Kongo gains "all Beliefs of any Religion that has established itself in a majority of his cities."

Yes, however Kongo can never build a holy site district, so it never has the prerequisite plot for worship buildings nor can they build the prerequisite buildings for them. So, they actually gain all beliefs except worship buildings, correct? Unless, what if Kongo captures a city that has a holy site?

 

[Plumfairy]

Yes, however Kongo can never build a holy site district, so it never has the prerequisite plot for worship buildings nor can they build the prerequisite buildings for them. So, they actually gain all beliefs except worship buildings, correct? Unless, what if Kongo captures a city that has a holy site?

Right, effectively Kongo can never gain the worship building beliefs. Also, it seems the Kongo can never gain the founder beliefs either; In my current game I've converted all my cities to a religion that has the Church Property founder belief (+2 gold per city that follows the religion), yet I'm still not getting any sweet sweet Church Property revenue. When the devs called them Founder beliefs, I guess they really meant it.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

In my current Kongo game, I've spread the Church Property religion to all my cities, but it's still not giving me any income. I don't know if Kongo's ability is bugged, or if that's by design, but it looks like the founder beliefs aren't available to Kongo after all. Oh well.

It probably wouldn't show up in the city, instead it should show up in your overall budget (you get so much from cities, so much from other civs, etc.)
It could be bugged though.