Dumb question: how does martyrdom work in the game?

[SupremacyKing2]

I know there is a martyr promotion that creates a relic when your apostle dies. Obviously, that can be very useful in a culture victory. Can you martyr an apostle or does it only happen when they happen to die in religious combat? The reason I ask is because it seems rather difficult to let your apostle lose in religious combat. In all my games, my apostles have never lost in religious combat. Plus, there are instances where the AI does not attack my apostle. So does the promotion really depend on just hoping the AI can kill your apostle? That seems weird. I would assume there would be a way for the player to force the apostle to be a martyr in order to take advance of the promotion.

Thanks.

 

[Rosty K]

I know there is a martyr promotion that creates a relic when your apostle dies. Obviously, that can be very useful in a culture victory. Can you martyr an apostle or does it only happen when they happen to die in religious combat? The reason I ask is because it seems rather difficult to let your apostle lose in religious combat. In all my games, my apostles have never lost in religious combat. Plus, there are instances where the AI does not attack my apostle. So does the promotion really depend on just hoping the AI can kill your apostle? That seems weird. I would assume there would be a way for the player to force the apostle to be a martyr in order to take advance of the promotion.

Thanks.

Basically you send them to the most religious civilization in the game (could be also nice if they had inquisition) and after some wandering around they'll do the kill. You want to fight on their territory near their Holy Sites (where they get the bonus), and if they're passive, just attack them yourself, and don't heal. Even if you kill a couple of their units, they'll soon build more.

Or if you're at war with someone, send the apostle at their units, they'll burn the heretic. I haven't tried this though.

 

[criZp]

If your apostle never lose a battle then your religious victory will be unstoppable (because winning a religious battle spreads your religion and removes the opponents), so I don't see how that could be a problem.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Basically you send them to the most religious civilization in the game (could be also nice if they had inquisition) and after some wandering around they'll do the kill. You want to fight on their territory near their Holy Sites (where they get the bonus), and if they're passive, just attack them yourself, and don't heal. Even if you kill a couple of their units, they'll soon build more.

Or if you're at war with someone, send the apostle at their units, they'll burn the heretic. I haven't tried this though.

Thanks. That is very helpful. As a player, your instinct of course is to try not to lose units, that it's counter intuitive to purposely try to lose your apostle unit. But I definitely want to try a culture victory with Russia that emphasizes relics.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

If your apostle never lose a battle then your religious victory will be unstoppable (because winning a religious battle spreads your religion and removes the opponents), so I don't see how that could be a problem.

It's not a problem for winning a religious victory. I am just trying to learn different ways to play the game. I know how to win a religious victory. I've done it many times. And I have a won a culture victory many times, but I've never really used relics all that much. So, I am just curious about winning a culture victory with more emphasis on relics.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I just march my martyr into an enemy (not at war, I mean rival) religious civ's capital and tell him to wait/sleep.

 

[Abraxis]

I think you can block holy units from spawning by standing on their holy sites. Is that true?
If so, park your martyr Apostles on them and force AI to give you your relics by clearing them out, or give up competing against your religion. Win/win.
It seemed to be working in my last game, I don't have much experience with the religion spreading game though so I'm not sure if they couldn't spawn or were just choosing not to.

 

[RohirrimElf]

A question is never dumb if you dont know the answer

 

[Rosty K]

I think you can block holy units from spawning by standing on their holy sites. Is that true?
If so, park your martyr Apostles on them and force AI to give you your relics by clearing them out, or give up competing against your religion. Win/win.
It seemed to be working in my last game, I don't have much experience with the religion spreading game though so I'm not sure if they couldn't spawn or were just choosing not to.

I don't think so. When you build Mahabodhi Temple, the 2-nd apostle will spawn on the city center. Same thing if I have a religious unit on a holy site, and then buy another one.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

If you go for culture victory with relics you should choose Poland because of their UA.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think you can block holy units from spawning by standing on their holy sites. Is that true?
If so, park your martyr Apostles on them and force AI to give you your relics by clearing them out, or give up competing against your religion. Win/win.
It seemed to be working in my last game, I don't have much experience with the religion spreading game though so I'm not sure if they couldn't spawn or were just choosing not to.

I station my Apostles around the Holy Site and swarm the new enemy Apostles as soon as they spawn. After a few spawns the city flips to your religion and you move on to the next city with a Holy Site and repeat, until they're out of Holy Sites. Only works against civs with high faith production, but the faster they pump out defenders, the quicker your religion spreads.

As far as I can tell, if the Civ is trying to defend against your missionaries, they always build in the Holy Site closest to the city under attack, so this approach seems to save time as you're not wandering around with your Debaters looking for victims.

And yes, if you station someone in the Holy Site, then the defender spawns in the city centre, where you can't attack them. So make sure you pull your Apostle back out of the Holy Site after defeating each defender, so there's room for them to place the next one.