Gifting Missionaries

e_a_olson

Gentleman and Diplomat
Joined
Sep 2, 2003
Messages
190
Location
Boston, MA
Has anyone tried gifting missionaries to other civs? Does this tactic help spread your religion, or is it too unpredictable? I tried gifting a Hindu missionary to Alexander in the hopes that he would stray from Theocracy and convert, but to no avail.
 
Hmmm, that might be a great idea. Should improve the diplomacy score with that civ too.
 
I've done this at times and had them apparantly be deleted. But I've had them spread too, as the other civ may have different contacts, trade routes, and open borders with other civs than you. Interesting idea, though, I still haven't got my head wrapped around it yet though.
 
Ok, what's the point of gifting the unit? If I remember correctly, you have to have open borders with the civ. If you have open borders, move the missionary into the city yourself and spread the religion. Don't HOPE the AI does it for you.
 
Remember that even if the empire has that religion already that they can only have Three Total missionaries of any one type... That might be why they got deleted in some instances...
 
Lormax said:
Ok, what's the point of gifting the unit? If I remember correctly, you have to have open borders with the civ. If you have open borders, move the missionary into the city yourself and spread the religion. Don't HOPE the AI does it for you.
The point, if it works, would be to get the target civ to use your missionary within the borders of a third civ with whom you don't have open borders. The question, of course, is whether or not the civ you gift the unit to will ever elect to do that.

I suspect the answer is yes, if your religion is their state religion.

It sounds like a tactic with a fairly narrow utility, but definitely not useless.
 
Control Group said:
The point, if it works, would be to get the target civ to use your missionary within the borders of a third civ with whom you don't have open borders. The question, of course, is whether or not the civ you gift the unit to will ever elect to do that.

Or even better - gift it to a target civ with a differant state religion which is running theology. You can't use a missionary to spread a non-state religion to their cities - they can. Must try this some time :).
 
I've tried gifiting missionaries a number of times. Mostly when my first attempt at spreading my religion has failed in other civ's city or cities. My hope is that they'll spread the religion themselves throughout their lands, earning me $$ (and maybe better relations).

In every case, they've simply held on to my gifted missionary, usually storing it in one of their cities and simply leaving it there.

On two occasions I've even seen the other civ build their own missionaries (of the same religion that I gave) and send them out to convert their own cities, leaving my gifted one to do nothing.
 
dar said:
Or even better - gift it to a target civ with a differant state religion which is running theology. You can't use a missionary to spread a non-state religion to their cities - they can.
Are you sure about that? I didn't think Theocracy distinguished based on whose missionary it was.
 
I have spread non-state religions within my own empire while under the Theocracy Civic, but can't spread a non-state religion within another countries borders who have Theocracy. This is odd and I sorta thought thqt it was a bug / exploit that may be fixed in the up coming patch.
 
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