Feature suggestion: Expell Great Prophet

[NotSure]

There are other ways to get a religion into another empire besides sending in the great prophets--converting cities & city states around that empire to produce pressure and/or selecting Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers as your enhancer belief, for example.

As it currently stands, GPs basically break every game I play in which I'm trying not to warmonger all of my neighbors.

I took both Religious Texts and Itinerant Preachers as Byzantium and the pressure form my religion was so strong it neutralized a neighbors holy city and flipped all of his nearby cities. Itinerant Preachers seems to be the stronger of the two, especially in a wide empire.

The Inquisitor is really the best answer for this. I try to keep a couple around. I chased an Ethiopian GP all the way back to it's capital with two Inquisitors and a Lancer.

There should be a way to tell the AI not to try converting your cities though. Holy wars should be justifiable conflicts that don't cause universal warmonger hits. I would totally understand if a neighbor went hostile after you told them to stop spreading their religion. The war(s) that follow should only affect diplomacy between the two parties involved, civilizations that share the same religions, and to a lesser extent "friends" of the involved parties. Warmonger penalties are still way too pervasive, persistent and punitive (God forbid you declare war on a civ more than once!).

 

[steveg700]

You would have to make sure that the game could keep track of AI actions that would justify (and enable) you to select different reasons for an 'justified' DOW or denouncement. If you didn't, it would be too easy to game the system and 'justify' every war you start.

For instance, catching an AI spy could allow you to declare war and list that as a cause. But if you didn't catch an AI spy, you would not be allowed or even given the option to list that as a justifying cause when you DOW.

Mongol won't like anyone who starts wars over city state aggression while Alexander and Siam like people who DO declare wars over city state aggression. Each "justifiable reason" option would be responsive to something that JUST happened - click the button when it scrolls down the side of the screen and get an option to DOW or Denounce over it and have the AI's decide if they think the reason was appropriate. Egypt will be concerned if someone declares a war over building a wonder.

How about good, old-fashioned hypocrisy? Genghis wants to bully city-states. Why would he share that prerogative with another civ? They can't pay tribute to you and then him.

A casus belli system can always be exploited by a canny warmonger. I got no problem with that. Look at WWI. Archduke Ferdinand provided a pretty flimsy basis for war, but it was enough to seem justified because Germany went through the motions.

The one thing a casus belli system should do effectively is distinguish between a civ who's launching blitzkriegs without precursor versus those who have gone through the motions of putting the opposing civ on notice.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thadian,

I guess I misunderstood you. The way I read your orignal idea was that when you, the player, go to DOW or denounce, you would be given options to justify it. I thought you meant that you could DOW or denounce out of the blue when no 'justifying' circumstances had happened.

I see that you meant that you would get the option to DOW/Denounce and justify it AFTER something has happened, like when you catch a spy red-handed.

The way I read it, I could just go up and DOW a civ two continents over and just make up a justification even if nothing had actually happened.

 

[Smokeybear]

EDIT: You also need to be given an alert whenever a foreign GP/missionary is seen in your territory.

Religious zealots are sneaky little bastards. They always sneak in under the radar, and you don't even know they're around until the troubles start. This applies in CiV, too.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Religious zealots are sneaky little bastards. They always sneak in under the radar, and you don't even know they're around until the troubles start. This applies in CiV, too.

 

[Babri]

This is correct. Spreading religion is not intended be purely a friendly act. It is another form of competition.

The big problem we have is, as is mentioned in so many threads, there is no concept of casus belli in Civ. Other civ's have no way to tell that you are exercising military action as a response to provocative behavior.

I posted an idea about casus belli in 2010. Here is the link :-
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=387640

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

There really needs to be more ways to combat the spread of an unwanted religion. Currently, if you see a missionary or a prophet around, your only recourse is to spend 300 faith on an inquisitor. You can't even tell the offending AI to stop(which is especially annoying considering they can do that to you), and, barring the inquisitor solution, you have no other (practical) way of stopping a missionary or prophet.

 

[Smokeybear]

There really needs to be more ways to combat the spread of an unwanted religion. Currently, if you see a missionary or a prophet around, your only recourse is to spend 300 faith on an inquisitor. You can't even tell the offending AI to stop(which is especially annoying considering they can do that to you), and, barring the inquisitor solution, you have no other (practical) way of stopping a missionary or prophet.

Yeah, it's not always practical, but in a pinch, you can surround your vulnerable city with units and workers, takes up to six, depending on mountains, water bodies or whatever. I've had to do that a few times, but it does work. Also, if you station an inquisitor or two at the closest cities between you and the source of the missionaries, they will often get hung up and unable to figure out how to get around those cities, almost like the inquisitors are a RAID barrier that the little cockroaches can't go through (nice analogy, that). I do wonder if the Inquisitors have some kind of hidden zealot-repellent quality, the way missionaries and GP's are reluctant to try to go past them (to get to other unguarded cities beyond).

 

[Drawmeus]

The longer we go, the more dissatisfied I am with both the religion and espionage features. It's a good thing the city-state rework and especially the navy reworks worked, or I'd be feeling pretty cheated by this expansion pack by now.

 

[thadian]

The number of times a civ has declared would be one factor. Then place other factors in a 3 stage list.

The first stage is protection of the self against another - if another expelles your prophet, spies against you, denounces you or settles on your border, etc.

The second stage would list reasons associated with protecting others - You denounced my ally, you attacked a city state.

The third stage would be instigation over something. Possibly making a demand with a button that says "Declare War!" so the AI knows the options are Pay its last gems or have war because of not paying gems.

Each time a war occurs or justification occurs, (over denouncement or war) the other AI nations would have to assess the reasoning (if you denounced askia "because of city state bullying" and declared against mongol "To liberate venice") then the Ai could make decisions that are responsive and proactive at the same time.

Greece and Siam are happy that you won't let Mongol push around the City states, Elizabeth hates that you denounced Askia for spying and Greece hates Siam for "Meddling in minor nations" for allying 14 city states. Meanwhile, Russia is angry that Mongol has a large army and Egypt is upset that others are wonder-building so he asks "Please stop production of [Wonder A]." Now, do you please Egypt, giving him Taj Mahal - or do you complete this wonder and add more to the pool?

Maybe Rome likes other people who build wonders.

This would take some work, like adding anything but truthfully, the AI could be given flavores that check both reason (was the reason good for me to accept?) and actions (was the reason pillowfisted, taken too far or just right?) after all, nobody likes a pillow-fisted loudmouth for an ally and nobody wants someone near them who goes bonkers over a spy or great prophet.

Hey, if nothing more maybe a modder will see this thread and get an idea. In theory - just have each justification mean as much as action or lack of action (your action might be "I forgive you for spreading your religion in my empire"). As for the AI using this themselves, i think it would increase dynamic diplomacy.

 

[oliver]

They should a diplomacy option saying stop evangelizing in my territory. It should work like the stop spying button they can accept or refuse and u take a diplo hit.

 

[thadian]

Other AI would either be happy you asked (we also hate evangelism) or upset (you are preventing our people from sharing their ideas!) - Asking would pose the first hit, then acceptance/refusal would give that nation a small hit. Some nations like people who agree to stop evangelism - while others who enjoy the practice would feel upset that someone was forced to agree to stop.

 

[Peng Qi]

I think they should make Missionaries, G.Prophets, and Inquisitors be able to engage in "combat" with one another like in Age of Empires or some of the Total War games even while in peacetime. I'd set it up like this:

Missionary: 3
Inquisitor: 6
G. Prophet: 9

Each time a Missionary or Prophet reaches 0 health, it would lose one of its conversions. An Inquisitor reaching 0 health would simply die. This "combat" would have no bonuses or penalties applied due to terrain, flanking, etc.

Oh, and even Missionaries would be allowed to "attack" other missionaries and even prophets, but obviously they'd be pretty bad at it. Prophets would be able to engage any religious target, too.

 

[shaglio]

I wish when you dencounced or DOW'd, it would offer you a popup box of "reasons" you could click. Then each other AI could "react" to the reason with a diplomacy bonus or penalty depending on the reasons.

This would allow the AI to treat each other the same way, and have games based on consequences and reasons. "We also despise heathen religions in our lands" - "You have acted against our faith". or "We like that you declared war (because) of City State Bullying." - "We despise people who interfere with our behavior toward City States." - "We like people who declare war to protect (Polynesia) our weak friend." - "We don't like people who declare war because of espionage actions."

This would add a whole new dimension to diplomacy where reasons matter to some extent.

Don't forget "Someday I shall rule the world!" for those who are legitimately warmongering and aren't ashamed to admit it.

 

[AfterShafter]

Meh, it's a great person. His ability should be *powerful* and, as it happens, it is. It's meant to be an invasive unit. Be extremely vigilant, have lots of inquisitors in your empire, or deal with being prophet bombed from time to time. It's annoying? Good - it should be. It's annoying when someone great engineer steals a wonder I've spent 50 turns on, pops a citadel next to my borders, etc etc - but I wouldn't argue they be changed.

 

[Unthinking Pain]

Meh, I don't see why anyone warmongering to stop the spread of a religion should avoid a warmongering diplomacy hit. Yes, it's Holy War - and that's warmongering. You just crossed the lines by responding to the peaceful spread of a religion with open, largescale bloodshed.

 

[docbud]

I have a problem in my current game. The CS Jerusalem is my ally, and follows my religion. Ethiopia keeps sending a missionary there and trying to convert Jerusalem to his religion. So I had to send my missionary to convert it back to mine. Rinse and repeat several times. I finally parked a few of my missionaries over there as he keeps sending his missionaries. I sent an Inquisitor but apparently they only protect your cities, not your CS's.

He tried to send missionaries into my cities, but I have Inquisitors in all of them.

It's just annoying he keeps trying to convert Jerusalem

 

[Danglesan]

if you have noticed, 'faith' units cannot cross any opposing unit. I will regularly 'dance' 3 or 4 troops around opposing GP. Main goal is to keep them away from tiles adjacent to a city, but if I see them coming, I will try to block them from entering my borders.

Furthermore, if you don't want your cities converted, DON'T ALLOW OPEN BORDERS! Attrition will kill the faith unit in 4 turns (should). Open borders negates attrition.

Wouldn't 'hexing' it in by surrounding it with 6 units be more effective? I also wonder if you could possibly (with enough units) herd GPs out of your territory, or into a out of the way place. A detainment camp of sorts.

 

[wpfossil]

A couple of times I've had luck herding GPs toward barbarian camps where they get captured. Then I sack the camp and use the GP as a scout or delete it. Once I was lucky enough to get one that could still build its holy site (which is non-denominational).

 

[Smokeybear]

Meh, I don't see why anyone warmongering to stop the spread of a religion should avoid a warmongering diplomacy hit. Yes, it's Holy War - and that's warmongering. You just crossed the lines by responding to the peaceful spread of a religion with open, largescale bloodshed.

Nah, it wasn't largescale bloodshed. I just strung up one smelly, long-haired hippy dude from that big tree over there. Pretty minimal bloodshed, really. It was the stupid civilization that deliberately sent him over my borders to screw up my believers that got all worked up about it and insisted on war. They should get a diplo hit for aggravated believer theft *and* for forcing us into a war with them for putting a proper end to said theft.