Defending against AI religious aggressiveness?

[julystork]

Go ahead, laugh, call me noob. My first Civ6 game ended in defeat, playing ROME, on PRINCE (in turn 390/year 1969).

Okay, I lost against Gandhi who won religious victory. I didn't care about getting a Great Prophet or religion, but apparently the other civs' apostles/missionaries are no match for the Indians'.

Is there any defence against AIs' apostles/missionaries aggressive spam, or is it only lining my borders with military units? (that's a lots of maintenance gold)

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

You can keep an eye on the religious leader in the score sheet.
If you are the last civ that needs to be converted in order to lose, then you needs to either A) Declare war and kill all apostles and missionaries or B) surround your cities with units to prevent apostles and missionaries from converting. That is, if they can't stand adjacent to your city, then they can't convert it.

 

[Mahasona]

Well, you could use the free ancient units like scouts to do the job if you don't have your own apostles sitting on a holy site.

I'm very unimpressed by the religious game, having my own religion doesn't give me the perks it did in 5. I usually turn it off.

 

[ansa]

Yeah the religion doesn't seem to be that interesting as it was in Civ 5.
Ghandi and Vicky just spam gazillion of apostles and send them your way, because obviously you have the most effectively located and numerous cities.
Like, literally it's a swarm of apostles.
It is extremely hard for a human player to fight this spam off with normal religion means on Deity.

I just always declare war when I see this crapstrom coming and ride them over with a horse.

There is a diplomatic request to stop converting your stuff, but it is not always available, I think it is available only after they flip a city already, and they pretty much always ignore it if your military is not in space age compared to theirs.

 

[King_Course]

The way I defend my Religion, is to suzerain Yerevan, and get 2 Apostles with the theological combat promotion. If you haven't got Yerevan, the game doesn't think you should have 2 Apostles with this promotion, so you might have to use another Apostle as a backup. Later you can use some Inquisitors as meatshields the same way. Stand them next to a Holy Site and heal and let the swarm attack them and die. If I get swarmed by religious units before I am ready, I straight up declare war and kill them.

 

[Aldor]

It may be possible to just spam inquisitors (you need an apostle and use its "Launch inquisition" ability first). An inquisitor removes foreign faiths from your cities and reinstalls your own faith. So one inquisitor can undo the work of several missionaries/apostles. They can also do theological combat, and directly fight missionaries (but they are no match for apostles).

Of course this depends on your faith production, and if you can get enough faith early enough to produce an apostle.

 

[WideCoast]

So one inquisitor can undo the work of several missionaries/apostles. They can also do theological combat, and directly fight missionaries (but they are no match for apostles).

I don't really know do they get an defensive bonus somewhere or what, but inquisitors standing in a holy site is a godsend against AI. They don't get one shotted even against apostles like it felt in the offensive, they heal and everytime they kill someone you'r religion gets a bonus sort of like a spread in close by cities and theirs lose equal amount in those cities.
I once almost accidentally gave Egypt religious victory by conquering their rivals and was literally 2cities away of being their victim when I got inquisitors online after seeing this TIP and boy did it help. Like 15turns later I got the continent with Egypts and my Capital under one religion whom one of my former rivals had founded. It was sick how quickly everything converted when Egypt suicided atleast like 5 religious units/turn and all I did was to buy inquisitors to Holy Sites and put them to sleep.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Are Inquisitors on your Holy Sites stronger than enemy Apostles? They do get +15 strength for being on holy ground. Is that enough extra strength? Of course they heal quickly being on the Holy Site itself.

 

[BigBadB]

Are Inquisitors on your Holy Sites stronger than enemy Apostles? They do get +15 strength for being on holy ground. Is that enough extra strength? Of course they heal quickly being on the Holy Site itself.

I believe that Inquisitors get a large strength bonus when in friendly territory, if that's what you mean?

 

[CoccoBill]

Inquisitors are +35 in friendly territory, which makes them slightly weaker than apostles (base 105 vs 110). On holy ground they heal just enough to beat apostles 1-on-1, at least up to immortal I believe (additional -4 from difficulty), not sure about deity. With some extra from cards they mince through them easily.

If I'm not going for a domination win or there's someone with an army that can beat me up, I tend to avoid aggravating them and DOW:ing to defend against religion spam, I usually rather just pick some other smaller religion and make a few inquisitors or apostles with theological combat. You can easily get those by building a holy site in a converted city or grabbing an enemy's city with one. Still better to DOW just that one time rather than against every apostle train.

 

[Bluetooth]

In my latest game I was disappointed that I couldn’t even found a religion but after a while I realized that six nations was fighting to win a religious victory. Well I didn’t bother anymore because no one had a chance to win a religious victory.

So my conclusion was that if you’re playing on large or huge maps you can pretty much let them convert you cities, it’s not likely they can win a religious victory, but I can be wrong of course.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

2 different situations

You have your own religion.
This is your best defense against a Religious Victory. You need to defend your religion from foreign conversion but can do it while staying at peace. Very few leaders actually care that you kill their Apostles (Philip and Saladin will). However if you want to keep good relations you want to wage theological war inside your borders rather than right next to them. If you "convert" one of the AI cities by killing their apostles in your own lands, they will complain about you sending proselytizers. Ways to fight efficiently.

• The "Debater" promotion gives an Apostle +20 str. This is huge. Try to have one and keep him at all cost. You can use his first 2 charges, but never the last one. A good way to help get this one (if Yerevan is not on the map/you can't be suzerain in time) is to check available promotions before you use an Apostle to evangelize a belief and if you see one of the bad promotions (depends on game but often Heathen Conversion and Martyr are bad), then choose it and use that apostle to evangelize. This will prevent the promotion from being offered to further apostles until you've cycled all promotions. You can "filter out" 3 promotions with your 2 evangelize and the inquisition.
• Resting next to a holy site will heal your apostle every turn a lot. Enemy Apostles are often dumb and will attack him rather than ignore and convert cities so you can kill them easily this way. If there are too many of them and you fear your apostle might die in one turn, limit the number of attacks by camping 1-2 units near your apostle. Don't put units on him or the enemy won't be able to attack you and they will convert your cities instead.
• Inquisitors are cheap, slightly weaker alternatives to normal Apostles. In your territory they have 105 str rather than 110 for a non debater apostle. Use them if the enemy has too many units (especially missionaries) and keep them in case of urgency to clear foreign religions.
• You have a bonus for defending on your lands. +5 near a city following your religion, +15 near your holy city. If you can camp your holy city's holy site with a debater apostle, he's nearly invincible.
• If a neighbor rushes you with missionaries before you have been able to found, don't panic. When you found every city with a holy site will convert to your religion and this will erase, or at least severely reduce foreign religion presence.
• If a neighbor rushes you after you founded but before you have apostles, you're in a dangerous situation and you'll probably have to declare war to protect your religion. Fortunately you should still be in classical era and war isn't too punishing.

You don't have your own religion.
You don't have many tools to stop a religious victory and relying on the AIs is usually a bad idea. Most of your options will probably be violent.

• Not tested, but from the tooltip on the victory screen i think if the holy city for a religion is conquered, the founder can't win a religious victory. Either take it yourself or try to get some strong AIs at war with the religious leader. He will probably have accumulated some hate going to that position.
• When he comes for you, declare war on him and kill his apostles with units.
• Of course, never get trapped in Friendship with the religious leader.
• If a weaker religion spreads to you and you have some holy sites, try to recruit Apostles from that religion and use them to kill apostles from the dominant religion like you would with your own religion (but you need a religion and at least one holy site)
• For those to work, try to guess who will be the religious leader before he's too strongly implanted. Some civilizations tend to get strong religion, mostly those with bonus faith. Some beliefs make religion easier to spread (bonus faith, cheaper Apostles, Mosques for more spread charges). If a civilization have several of those he's probably going to become the dominant religion so keep an eye on him and try to make his life harder as best as you can
  • Get him at war with some AIs (bonus point for having him declare the war)
  • If you don't mind getting your hands dirty, get at war with him and pillage his holy sites

 

[Victoria]

I hate the religion lens, it ruins my game so I avoid it by not bothering. In fact I have not bothered to defend against them either and have not lost to a religious victory yet. I let the swarm come in, blocking them just means they will be in your territory longer. They do not stay long and through the game apostles keep popping along to reconvert or whatever they do. I do keep an eye on the victory screen just in case , only every now and then but I think I have been lucky. Last thing I want to do is create my own religion just to defend against another but I should really as religion can help a lot in cultural victories. Just feel it slows my start down too much, limits my other districts ... just gah

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

You have a bonus for defending on your lands. +5 near a city following your religion, +15 near your holy city. If you can camp your holy city's holy site with a debater apostle, he's nearly invincible.

How is Holy City defined? Is that the City whose Holy Site your Prophet stands on when creating your Religion? When your Religion is founded, all your cities with a Holy Site immediately get converted to your newly founded Religion. Are they also Holy Cities? In general, how can you tell which cities are Holy Cities? You might remember the city where your Great Prophet founded your religion, but how are foreign Religion's Holy Cities identified?

 

[Victoria]

How is Holy City defined? Is that the City whose Holy Site your Prophet stands on when creating your Religion?

Correct, you can find this using the tourism lens because the holy site of your holy city creates tourism.
I am not sure yet about foreign but as the GOTM is religious one will have a dig around. The is other important questions like religious spread. I know some answers and not others. Should not someone be making a guide for religion. It seems an easier topic than tourism was.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Wow, use Tourism lens to find Holy Cities. This game is really strange.

 

[Victoria]

Wow, use Tourism lens to find Holy Cities. This game is really strange.

You can also see it in the religion lens... in each cities cirle the holy city had a double band that pulses outwards
I found this because I became Suze of Jerusalem and it started double banding for me
I just started looking up the stuff, seems to a degree straight forward
I think I might start a thread with this in to get what people know for a guide

EDIT - Thread created https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/finding-my-religion.606648/

For initial Religion
RELIGION_INITIAL_BELIEFS=2
RELIGION_PANTHEON_MIN_FAITH=25

For City Spread
RELIGION_SPREAD_ADJACENT_CITY_DISTANCE=10
RELIGION_SPREAD_ADJACENT_PER_TURN_PRESSURE=1
RELIGION_SPREAD_ATHEISM_PRESSURE_PER_POP=50
RELIGION_SPREAD_HOLY_CITY_PRESSURE_MULTIPLIER=4
RELIGION_SPREAD_HOLY_CITY_PRESSURE_PER_POP=200
RELIGION_SPREAD_HOLY_SITE_PRESSURE_MULTIPLIER=2

For combat
RELIGION_SPREAD_RANGE_COMBAT_VICTORY=6
RELIGION_SPREAD_RANGE_UNIT_CAPTURE=6
RELIGION_SPREAD_UNIT_CAPTURE = 125
RELIGION_HEALING_MULTIPLIER=3
RELIGION_SPREAD_COMBAT_VICTORY=250

Either spread or combat
RELIGION_SPREAD_STRENGTH_MULTIPLIER=200

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I looked at lens option of the map breifly, when I starting playing Civ VI, but none of them looked useful at the time and I never looked at them again. I'm obviously still learning the basics of this game.

All the religion parameters you listed look extremely useful to understanding religion. Could be applied to the new 6otm game with great effect.

 

[Victoria]

The trouble is I have had 3 crashes with Japan, hopefully its just me. It is slowing me up though as I have to start again

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I had crashes when attaching and detaching the same missionary in the same turn from a conquistador in my Philip II game. I stopped doing that and the crashes stopped.