"Don't convert my cities" logic flaw

[CaptainPatch]

So, given that an AI civ has established a Religion. It has established all its cities to that Religion. Then another civ comes in and converts one of those cities to its Religion. The city-owner now has one of its cities NOT adhering to the State Religion. Then the human player comes along and converts that city to his Religion, from the third-party Religion it had previously been converted to.

Under the above situation, why should the city-owner get full grievances for the player having converted its city from that third-party Religion? It is pointedly different from the situation where another civ is converting the city from the State Religion. Regardless, it will take the city-owner's sending in Missionaries and Apostles to convert the city to the State Religion regardless if the city had no dominant Religion, or was dominated by another AI civ's Religion or if it had subsequently been converted to the player's State Religion.

It isn't like the player "stole" the city from the AI civ. It had already been "stolen" by a different AI civ.

 

[Ziad]

I mean... youre still engaging in religious conversion on their territory as they try to consolidate their own power.

 

[Dragabond]

Let's say I have a case of beer.

I happily drink my beer from the case.

Someone comes along and takes my beer.

This displeases me. I want my beer back.

Then someone else comes along and takes the beer from the person who took my beer initially.

I am still displeased and still without beer, and don't like either person. I don't see why I should like the second beer thief any more than the initial beer thief.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Buuuuuttttt what the city-owner needs to do to convert the city back to his Religion is IDENTICAL to that of when the first thief took it. Religiously speaking, though his city (he retains property rights on it), in regards to Religion, that train has left the station. If anything, he should be pleased to see that the initial thief has had his ill-gotten goods stolen from him. Would he feel any better knowing that the city religiously still belongs to the initial thief?

It might be useful to have an option to return a city to its original Religion. Sort of like returning a liberated city back to the original civ that built it.

 

[Equilin]

Your view is only somewhat valid when everyone is going for religious victory. The "victim" civ might not actually care about anyone else, he just want his benefit from his own religion to be in his city, anyone messing with that would get grievances. For empires, the only thing that matters is "Own or not own", it does not matter who's the thief as long as the stuff is stolen, the original owner will want it back regardless.

 

[CaptainPatch]

The situation that brought up this subject was that I was in the process of eradicating the Religion, which happened to be the Religion of the civ that stole the city in the first place. That city was the last city where that Religion still was dominant. The city owner wasn't doing anything to take back his city (for nearly 100 turns), so to finish off that Religion I needed to do it myself. If I could, I would have gladly given Religious control of the city back to the city-owner, but that's not an option.

I just think it's a pissant thing to do to whine about "He stole my city!" when the city-owner wasn't willing to take back control himself. And then he gets rewarded with grievances against for _him_ creating the situation by not even sending just one Apostle to get it to convert back to his Religion.

 

[TomKQT]

This doesn't bother me at all, I don't think it's so unlogical.
What however is unlogical and silly and related to your thread title is when an enemy apostole comes to my empire, I kill him with my apostole (as a defensive act), this spreads my religion to his territory and he is upset.

 

[Medopu]

Well seeing that you've gone the route of religious dominance it would only make sense for AI to be more concerned about your conversions rather than the conversions of the previous thief who perhaps isn't as threatening with the active conversions as you are.
And even if you werent threatening to win religiosly, you still are messing around inside his borders and AI should rightfully be upset about you doing it regardless of what religion you try to replace. If you break into my house and steal possesions that arent my own it still wouldnt change the fact that you broke into my house against my wish and i'd be mad about it.

 

[Victoria]

What the!
@CaptainPatch what are you doing turning my cities into Hare Krishna shrines. I have bald orange people everywhere and it is even starting to annoy the real estate salesmen.
Take them fruit flavoured idiots out of here, at least the church of the new scientist keep to themselves.
... I thought you had more taste.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Well seeing that you've gone the route of religious dominance it would only make sense for AI to be more concerned about your conversions rather than the conversions of the previous thief who perhaps isn't as threatening with the active conversions as you are.
And even if you werent threatening to win religiosly, you still are messing around inside his borders and AI should rightfully be upset about you doing it regardless of what religion you try to replace. If you break into my house and steal possesions that arent my own it still wouldnt change the fact that you broke into my house against my wish and i'd be mad about it.

Buuuuttt I'm NOT trespassing! In fact, we have an Alliance. (Ironically, a Religious Alliance.) [Also ironically, I'm allied with the civ that I booted out of my other ally's city. I think that one was a Cultural Alliance.] And as it happens, he also has his Missionaries and Apostles traipsing through my real estate. But as he hasn't converted any of my cities (all of which have my Religion dominant), I _can't_ say anything about it.

Furthermore, how would **he** know that I'm on the Religious Victory path? The ONLY civ whose Religion I am/did eradicate was the Religion of a civ that DID have the audacity to convert one of MY cities, and then when I complained, he said, "No, no! This is for the best!" So what we have here is Crusader versus Saracen stuff. The Buddhists and Taoists and Eastern Orthodox, et al Religions have no need to worry; this fracas doesn't involve them (yet).

 

[Equilin]

Buuuuttt I'm NOT trespassing! In fact, we have an Alliance. (Ironically, a Religious Alliance.) [Also ironically, I'm allied with the civ that I booted out of my other ally's city. I think that one was a Cultural Alliance.] And as it happens, he also has his Missionaries and Apostles traipsing through my real estate. But as he hasn't converted any of my cities (all of which have my Religion dominant), I _can't_ say anything about it.

Furthermore, how would **he** know that I'm on the Religious Victory path? The ONLY civ whose Religion I am/did eradicate was the Religion of a civ that DID have the audacity to convert one of MY cities, and then when I complained, he said, "No, no! This is for the best!" So what we have here is Crusader versus Saracen stuff. The Buddhists and Taoists and Eastern Orthodox, et al Religions have no need to worry; this fracas doesn't involve them (yet).

Converting another's city, regardless of whatever the city condition is as long as it owned by the target, is considered trespassing/violation of sovereignty in terms of diplomacy/international relations, and as such can cause a dispute (shown as grievances in this game, and relation hit).

 

[FenrisWolf456]

Buuuuttt I'm NOT trespassing! In fact, we have an Alliance. (Ironically, a Religious Alliance.) [Also ironically, I'm allied with the civ that I booted out of my other ally's city. I think that one was a Cultural Alliance.] And as it happens, he also has his Missionaries and Apostles traipsing through my real estate. But as he hasn't converted any of my cities (all of which have my Religion dominant), I _can't_ say anything about it.

But a religious alliance doesn't mean you're free to just convert as you please. What if your ally did convert one of your cities ... sounds like you would have gone in and converted his entire empire. What if your ally managed to convert your converted city first? Would you be chill with them having done so. But it sounds like your ally was following along with the religious alliance just fine, while you're the one chomping at the bit to get to converting everyone.

Furthermore, how would **he** know that I'm on the Religious Victory path? The ONLY civ whose Religion I am/did eradicate was the Religion of a civ that DID have the audacity to convert one of MY cities, and then when I complained, he said, "No, no! This is for the best!" So what we have here is Crusader versus Saracen stuff. The Buddhists and Taoists and Eastern Orthodox, et al Religions have no need to worry; this fracas doesn't involve them (yet).

Okay ... so imagine a neighbourhood with three people who really like one particular colour. You're sitting there in your pretty blue house with your blue car and mailbox. You wave across the street to your best friend and neighbour Reddy McReddington. But oh oh, here comes mean ol' Mr. Green, and *gasp* he painted Red's mailbox green! And then yours! The cad!

You're out of blue paint at the moment so you sit back and sigh. But then see Reddy get out their paint, and repaint their mailbox. Well, that's all good and fine. Then Reddy marches over to Mr. Green's yard and paints his mailbox red ... then his car ... then the entire house. Hmm ... well, that's a bit of an over-reaction, surely.

And then Reddy comes your way, and paints your mailbox red ... and they wave to you, and you can see that their garage is full of red paint ...

 

[CaptainPatch]

But a religious alliance doesn't mean you're free to just convert as you please. What if your ally did convert one of your cities ... sounds like you would have gone in and converted his entire empire. What if your ally managed to convert your converted city first? Would you be chill with them having done so. But it sounds like your ally was following along with the religious alliance just fine, while you're the one chomping at the bit to get to converting everyone.



Okay ... so imagine a neighbourhood with three people who really like one particular colour. You're sitting there in your pretty blue house with your blue car and mailbox. You wave across the street to your best friend and neighbour Reddy McReddington. But oh oh, here comes mean ol' Mr. Green, and *gasp* he painted Red's mailbox green! And then yours! The cad!

You're out of blue paint at the moment so you sit back and sigh. But then see Reddy get out their paint, and repaint their mailbox. Well, that's all good and fine. Then Reddy marches over to Mr. Green's yard and paints his mailbox red ... then his car ... then the entire house. Hmm ... well, that's a bit of an over-reaction, surely.

And then Reddy comes your way, and paints your mailbox red ... and they wave to you, and you can see that their garage is full of red paint ...

First off, had the owner of the city already converted the city back to his Religion, I most definitely would NOT have converted that city to my Religion (....yet. A hundred turns later, maybe.) There would have been no _need_ to convert it in order to reduce my "enemy" Religion; it would have already been done.

And as for your hypotheticals, you are putting those in terms of the worrier perceiving that HE is being/will be targeted. NOT the case. Plenty of opportunities for that to have happened as I had to pass through his territory to get at my intended target, with no city with his Religion being molested. So why would _he_ feel threatened?

 

[FenrisWolf456]

First off, had the owner of the city already converted the city back to his Religion, I most definitely would NOT have converted that city to my Religion (....yet. A hundred turns later, maybe.) There would have been no _need_ to convert it in order to reduce my "enemy" Religion; it would have already been done.

And as for your hypotheticals, you are putting those in terms of the worrier perceiving that HE is being/will be targeted. NOT the case. Plenty of opportunities for that to have happened as I had to pass through his territory to get at my intended target, with no city with his Religion being molested. So why would _he_ feel threatened?

Well, from the mechanics side of things, it's a simple <<My City>> converted to <<Not My Religion>> so <<Warn Converter>>.

But from a more 'real world view' ... you've had this long standing understanding of live and let live with your religions. You have yours, I have mine, and we won't try meddling with each other citizens, and maybe even have some friendly religious discourse (i.e., the trade route bonus). And yet here you are coming in and converting my citizens from the horrors of Greenism to the 'wonders' of Redthalicism. But they're still my citizens, and you essentially 'bent' the alliance by converting them anyway, just not from my religion. How is that at least not a concern that you seem ready to swoop in to reconvert any of my citizens? (Whether I was making any effort or not to return them to the fold of Bluelam or not, they're still MY toys ... err, people ... so hands off!)

 

[CaptainPatch]

But from a more 'real world view' ... you've had this long standing understanding of live and let live with your religions. You have yours, I have mine, and we won't try meddling with each other citizens, and maybe even have some friendly religious discourse ...

This is a rather MODERN view on Religion. For most of human History, Religions were incredibly hostile towards one another. So much so, ongoing religious wars were the norm rather than the exception. There were situations where two or more Religions coexisted in the same area, but those were usually where one DOMINATED that area and the others were the Religions of the slaves. (Hebrews held in captivity by first Egypt, and then later Babylon, and still later by the Romans.)

I believe the design intent in Civ was for Religions to engage in open warfare as they strove to, all of them, make themselves the One True Religion. But for the Americans among us, we just can't get those ideas of Freedom of Religion and "separation of Church and State" out of our heads. The religious combat mechanics makes it MUCH easy to initiate a 30 Years War than it is to establish any kind of ecumenical council. If anything, the program doesn't push hard enough to promote open religious warfare.

 

[RealAntithesis]

The city owner wasn't doing anything to take back his city (for nearly 100 turns), so to finish off that Religion I needed to do it myself.

Maybe that civ wanted to keep that religion in the city for whatever reason, or didn't care, but then you came along to meddle in their internal affairs...

 

[CaptainPatch]

Maybe that civ wanted to keep that religion in the city for whatever reason, or didn't care, but then you came along to meddle in their internal affairs...

Really? Think about that. A civ leader _wanted_ to have some other Religion than the one he started to dominate in one of his cities? After that Religion had displaced his from city dominance?

Not.

 

[Equilin]

You cannot confirm that the city owner does or does not want to remove that religion.
Even if it's 100 turns later, he might just be prioritizing saving faith for GPs and didn't get spare to convert the city back. He still needs to use other methods to defend his cities (in this case, warn you) from religious aggression.

 

[CaptainPatch]

You cannot confirm that the city owner does or does not want to remove that religion.
Even if it's 100 turns later, he might just be prioritizing saving faith for GPs and didn't get spare to convert the city back. He still needs to use other methods to defend his cities (in this case, warn you) from religious aggression.

Might I point out that neither can you confirm that the city owner does or does not want to remove that Religion. However,according to the programming and what passes for strategy in this game, a Religion is founded with the clear intent to ultimately make it the dominant Religion in EVERY city. Or failing that, to make it the dominant Religion in EVERY civ. That being the case, why would a civ leader NOT want a foreign Religion booted from one of his cities?

 

[Equilin]

Might I point out that neither can you confirm that the city owner does or does not want to remove that Religion. However,according to the programming and what passes for strategy in this game, a Religion is founded with the clear intent to ultimately make it the dominant Religion in EVERY city. Or failing that, to make it the dominant Religion in EVERY civ. That being the case, why would a civ leader NOT want a foreign Religion booted from one of his cities?

as i said, the civ leader might have priorities to use his faith on (and you know ai faith generation is not great). i don't think that's difficult to understand .