Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
This experience strongly suggests you were NOT the first there. Keep in mind that when an AI reaches the tech the same round you do the first-to mechanism usually gives it to the AI.
At this stage of the game I doubt anyone would've BIRTHED a prophet yet so it's unlikely you were the first to the tech.
The civilization that DID capture the Prophet from Druidism must have wanted Shamanism due to his preferences and so tried to hold out to get it. When it couldn't get Druidism because another civ got there first and founded the religion before he could, he then immediately used his earned prophet on Druidism.
This is quite possible with the way the AI is programmed. The thinking there is that if they can get to the one they really want, the prophet they're holding can be used to immediately then build the holy building and, as a backup plan they can just use that prophet for the one they could've otherwise founded but ignored when they got the free prophet.
In other words, they aren't programmed to IMMEDIATELY use the free prophet to capture the religion impulsively at all times. This works particularly well for them in the Prehistoric era when being first to the religion is about the only way to birth a prophet during the whole era. Therefore if they're leaving a religion open they aren't really leaving it so vulnerable for another civ's birthed prophet to found it instead.
One thing you should be noticing now with a recent adjustment - and confirm this for me if you would - is that a religious tech that still has a prophet up for grabs will say in its hover description in the tech tree that 'the first civilization to research will get a free Great Prophet'. It should stop saying this as soon as a Civ captures the prophet BUT again, that CAN happen on the same round you would've got it too so if the tech is saying this when you finalize researching the tech and you don't get the free prophet there's one of two things that could've happened:
1) Another civ got it that same round
or
2) We have a bug where that religious tech isn't indicating it will reward a free prophet with the <bFirstFreeProphet> tag.
For that second one - I do eventually plan to rewrite the code somewhat to eliminate the need for the tag. I did the tag rather than an automatic method in part because I wasn't as skilled at the time and in part because I wondered if some religions might be more appropriately started by other types of Great People so I allowed that tag to specify another type of free GP. For example: Yoruba might be more appropriate for an Artist to found. (only problem is that I haven't adapted other GP AIs to be able to do this so it would take doing that in the code in addition to xml to make it work.)
Anyhow... long story short - your tale of the game dynamic you experienced sounds like the AI is working exactly as it should be.
