How do you stop declared friends from converting your cities?

[Nathaniel VII]

I was playing my first game after the patch, and diplomacy was going reasonably well. Had a declared friendship with Trajan, when he started to send a swarm of almost a dozen missionaries to my holy city. He was clearly trying to achieve a religious victory, and he was the leading civ for that.

I went to diplomacy to ask him to stop... and there was nothing there. The only option was "Make a deal", which wasn't helpful at all. I can't break up the friendship because it has to expire, which means I also can't denounce him. The only way to stop him was a surprise attack on his missionaries, which led to every other Civ in the game denouncing and hating me over the following two turns.

Am I missing something, or do friendships basically give a civ a free pass to convert their friends' empires without even the possibility to ask them to stop? If they had to at least break a promise to continue, allowing you to denounce them, or start a holy war, or something like that, it wouldn't be as bad.

I've disabled religious victory for my second game. The entire implementation of missionaries and religious victory is horrible. Missionaries having open borders independent of political agreements (not to mention them blocking off your own units from moving inside your own territory) is probably one of the worst design mistakes in the entire game.

 

[steveg700]

I was playing my first game after the patch, and diplomacy was going reasonably well. Had a declared friendship with Trajan, when he started to send a swarm of almost a dozen missionaries to my holy city. He was clearly trying to achieve a religious victory, and he was the leading civ for that.

I went to diplomacy to ask him to stop... and there was nothing there. The only option was "Make a deal", which wasn't helpful at all. I can't break up the friendship because it has to expire, which means I also can't denounce him. The only way to stop him was a surprise attack on his missionaries, which led to every other Civ in the game denouncing and hating me over the following two turns.

Am I missing something, or do friendships basically give a civ a free pass to convert their friends' empires without even the possibility to ask them to stop? If they had to at least break a promise to continue, allowing you to denounce them, or start a holy war, or something like that, it wouldn't be as bad.

I've disabled religious victory for my second game. The entire implementation of missionaries and religious victory is horrible. Missionaries having open borders independent of political agreements (not to mention them blocking off your own units from moving inside your own territory) is probably one of the worst design mistakes in the entire game.

This Discuss option to ask them to stop is only available once a city has been converted. So, that's issue #1.

Issue #2 is that even when it's available, the AI does not really pay it heed and the promise will usually be broken, even by friends.

Issue #3 is that religious combat results in exerting pressure and converts cities, so both you and the AI can wind up making promises they can't possibly keep to their neighbors except by not having any religious units that another civ might attack.

Of course, the AI is supposed to be trying to win, so if it is going for a religious victory. It shouldn't value your friendship to the degree that it just throws in the towel. It *must* break that promise. So must you, if that was your path to winning. There is no religious victory where everyone holds hands and sings cumbaya....which is, y'know, kinda weird.

 

[Nathaniel VII]

This Discuss option to ask them to stop is only available once a city has been converted. So, that's issue #1.

Yeah, well, having to wait until your (holy) city has been converted before you can talk to your "friend" seems... pretty bad.

Issue #2 is that even when it's available, the AI does not really pay it heed and the promise will usually be broken, even by friends.

Obviously the AI doesn't keep its promises. That would be silly. But would you at least get the option to denounce him at that point, or do you still have to wait until the "friendship" expires naturally?

 

[kampori]

Obviously the AI doesn't keep its promises. That would be silly. But would you at least get the option to denounce him at that point, or do you still have to wait until the "friendship" expires naturally?

You can denounce at any time, to anyone. It breaks off friendship, and all diplomatic ties. In 5 turns you can then formal war.
Or once one of your cities has been converted, and you have unlocked the civic (can't remember which), you can Cassus Belli a Holy War.
Or keep your own religious units near your holy sites and kill off any that come near. Or 'cheat' and build a wall of units around your cities.

 

[joncnunn]

The real way to make them stop is the same as Civ V; you make them. (Just like a human)
In Civ VI, that is using an apostle to start an Inquisition and then faith buying Inquisitors.
This can even be done before the AI starts sending them.

 

[steveg700]

You can denounce at any time, to anyone. It breaks off friendship, and all diplomatic ties. In 5 turns you can then formal war.

Well, you can't denounce someone in alliance with you.

 

[kampori]

Well, you can't denounce someone in alliance with you.

Forgive me

 

[Kitalahara]

Inquisitors. Make them waste all that work with one click. If you are in a pinch and trying to hold them off a few turns. use your military units to block the city center till you can properly use the Inquisitor to scrub away the bad mojo.

 

[isau]

If you have enough Faith, roll Apostles until you get one with the +10 religious combat bonus promotion. Then (ideally) be a Theocracy. Unless they also specialize in religious combat, you will lay absolute waste to any Missionary or Apostle they send at you. I find this works especially well if you have the belief that allows religious units to ignore terrain penalties, so you can rush quickly to intercept units as they arrive, and then run back to Holy Sites to heal.

 

[nzcamel]

Inquisitors and, even more importantly, Apostles. They stop city conversion quite nicely

 

[Slayan]

The promise to not convert city's is one of the most worthless parts of the game, I have yet to find a AI player that didn't say they would stop and then the next turn spam 5 missionary's, They should just take it out of the game the only person that gets a penalty is the player if you break this promise

As for Inquisitor's I have yet to me able to make then on any of my games

 

[ThERat]

The religious spam is that bad, that I often lose patience and simple declare war to wipe them out.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

Yeah I noticed the lack of options once you become friends with someone. Off topic: it really speaks volumes on how lacking the diplomacy in Civ6 is when becoming friends reduces your options not increase them.

As you say, you know the AI will break the promise because there is a lot beyond direct control. So the devs probably removed that option for friends so it doesn't complicate things.

As others mentioned, the only way to deal with it is make units of your own.

In my post patch game the AI is sending inquisitors for some reason. I have one apostle that's destroying them all and it has made me convert its cities to my religion.

 

[Helmling]

I leave an apostle in every city now and have one with the debater +20 roaming around mopping up. The only problem is shuffling them back to the holy site to heal. I guess I should build more holy sites.

 

[nzcamel]

Think of it like barb farming...just not barbs. It's pretty profitable.
The only downside really is that the AI think you're converting their cities on purpose, when you're not...you're religious victories just spill your influence over into their near by cities. That (the AI reaction to it) needs to be fixed.

 

[Tavenier]

I think it works relatively logical, only the fact that the AI pays no heed whatsoever to its promise. And I hate it that missionaries stop my own tankdivisions from entering my own tiles. That shouldn't be possible either. I wish the religious thing would work in the way like spying does. That you can place missionaries in cities to try and convert them and you can place inquisitors as counterspies. And then the only 'real' religious unit being a war priest to boost your crusading army. And make apostles Great Persons you can gain after prophets are all used to get relics.

 

[Stilgar08]

The promise to not convert city's is one of the most worthless parts of the game, I have yet to find a AI player that didn't say they would stop and then the next turn spam 5 missionary's, They should just take it out of the game the only person that gets a penalty is the player if you break this promise

As for Inquisitor's I have yet to me able to make then on any of my games

Saladin stopped after me demanding to stop in my recent game! Trajan, too - and we are direct neighbours! (this is postpatch, don't know if it makes any difference). What really need to be established is the differentiation between active and passive conversion. Maybe added with a rule for religious combat if in your own borders (makes it "not active").

Personally I'm good with 4-6 apostles in my games - or (as a rule of thump) 2 apostles on any foreign continent you have cities on. Gang up on incoming missionaries and apostles respectively and heal the guys inbetween fights at holy sites works great for me. Use their charges but for the last one - they still fight on full health so you get the max out of them. I used inquisitors but only occasionaly.

 

[TimTurry]

The religious spam is that bad, that I often lose patience and simple declare war to wipe them out.

This.
For this reason, no matter what victory condition I am going for, It turns into a conquest because the flood of missionaries drives me crazy! And this is the only way I can make my cavalry run over all their stupid civilians in my country.

 

[AriochIV]

You can ask them to stop, and they will agree, and then promptly break the promise.

The diplomacy system includes essentially no tools to manage peaceful relations. The only answer to most problems is a declaration of war.

 

[nzcamel]

I have seen them stop. Eventually they'll creep back to it; but it all works best with a combined approach where your actions are making it not worth them spamming you with missionaries. If they do it, they loose as it results in me converting their cities without even trying.

You've got to play the game! You lot who are complaining about the religious spam actually aren't playing the game cos you don't like one feature of it. It's been noted and addressed in the patch; but no doubt in some games you will still get a bit of religious bombardment. It is a victory type now, so I can't see them making it like espionage. There's no point dropping your lip about it. Listen to people here and find a way to stop it yourself!