Holy Cities & Line of Sight

[gyvrix]

So I'm playing my first game of CivIV and the LoS (line-of-sight) bonus of founding religions seemed really cool so I went after those first.

I got Hinduism first and made it my state religion and later got Confucianism. I built Stonehenge to get great people Prophet points and got one. I met the Chinese and their state religion was Confucianism. I had the holy city for Confucianism but no LoS. So I used my great Prophet to build the shrine in the holy city, still no LoS. Suddenly a differnet civ got Hinduism in one of its cities and I have LoS to it.

So it seems like to get the LoS benefit you have to have the holy city AND have it be your state religion. But that sure isn't how it is worded in the manual "If you control the holy city for a religion, you can see what's going on in any city with that religion, as well as all spaces that city can see." or in the Civilopedia "If you control the holy city for a religion, you gain line-of-sight benefits in all foreign cities sharing your religion. This allows you to spy on what enemy cities are doing at no cost."

Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[peanutgu]

Neither do I. And could you tell me how can I get the holy city? I always get the great person which I want to bulit the regilion building, but it tells me that I need a holy city.
Thank you for giving me the help！

 

[Driftwood]

You have to be the founder of the religion in question to have the religion's holy city in your empire.

 

[gyvrix]

To get the holy city you have to be the first civ to discover the relevant technology. So a good early one is Meditation but if you miss the early ones you could go for Theology. The first civ to discover Meditation founds Buddhism and one of their cities is designated the "holy city" for that religion. The first civ to discover Theology founds Christianity and one of their cities is designated the holy city for that religion. There can be only one civ to "first" discover the tech and hence only one "holy city" per religion. Kind of like a world wonder that way.

 

[mossmonster]

There are many instances like this where the manual isn't exactly correct.

General rule: If after playing the game you find something in the manual that's wrong, then the manual is indeed wrong.

 

[Pegasus_wings]

So I'm playing my first game of CivIV and the LoS (line-of-sight) bonus of founding religions seemed really cool so I went after those first.

I got Hinduism first and made it my state religion and later got Confucianism. I built Stonehenge to get great people Prophet points and got one. I met the Chinese and their state religion was Confucianism. I had the holy city for Confucianism but no LoS. So I used my great Prophet to build the shrine in the holy city, still no LoS. Suddenly a differnet civ got Hinduism in one of its cities and I have LoS to it. Does anyone know anything about this?

Yea, this confused me to, just because China has Confucianism as their state religion dosn't mean any of their cities have more that half the people following Confucianism.

 

[mossmonster]

So I'm playing my first game of CivIV and the LoS (line-of-sight) bonus of founding religions seemed really cool so I went after those first.

I got Hinduism first and made it my state religion and later got Confucianism. I built Stonehenge to get great people Prophet points and got one. I met the Chinese and their state religion was Confucianism. I had the holy city for Confucianism but no LoS. So I used my great Prophet to build the shrine in the holy city, still no LoS. Suddenly a differnet civ got Hinduism in one of its cities and I have LoS to it.

So it seems like to get the LoS benefit you have to have the holy city AND have it be your state religion. But that sure isn't how it is worded in the manual "If you control the holy city for a religion, you can see what's going on in any city with that religion, as well as all spaces that city can see." or in the Civilopedia "If you control the holy city for a religion, you gain line-of-sight benefits in all foreign cities sharing your religion. This allows you to spy on what enemy cities are doing at no cost."

Does anyone know anything about this?

You only get line of sight for your state religion. Is yours Hinduism? If so then you would have to change to Confucianism to gain LOS on the Chinese, but you would lose your current LOS view from your Hindu cities. The shrines don't matter when it comes to this.

 

[chinesefireball]

As I don't have civ4 yet can someone explain to me what line of sight is please?

 

[KizilKar]

My religion was practised over the "entire" continent. I almost ruined myself building all my missionaries but I could not be surprised by any AI move. Then I got freedom of religion and changed my Civic to it. Suddenly my entire mini map went dark. So freedom of religion means NO religion and NO LoS for you even if you founded every single religion in the game. (Bummer for my religiously minded civilization)

 

[Colonel Kraken]

My religion was practised over the "entire" continent. I almost ruined myself building all my missionaries but I could not be surprised by any AI move. Then I got freedom of religion and changed my Civic to it. Suddenly my entire mini map went dark. So freedom of religion means NO religion and NO LoS for you even if you founded every single religion in the game. (Bummer for my religiously minded civilization)

Excellent tip. Thanks!

 

[KMadCandy]

Neither do I. And could you tell me how can I get the holy city? I always get the great person which I want to bulit the regilion building, but it tells me that I need a holy city.
Thank you for giving me the help！

even once you've founded a religion it can be hard to see which of your cities is the holy city, the only marker on the screen is a little gold star by the religion symbol on the city, and i haven't figured out the logic the game uses to decide which of your cities get to be the holy one. but it's easy to find it if you go to the religion screen, all the holy cities are listed up at the top, saves you searching for the little gold star.