I don't want to be an infidel!

[rupertmonkey]

So I had this isolated start with Charlemagne on Monarch. I figured I'd go for a cultural victory. Founded Buddhism, had stone, built Pyramids, nine cities, blah blah blah. Everything was going swimmingly, beelined Optics, met everybody, got nice and friendly, open orders with the right kind of people.

Then some Christian chucklehead, who was pleased with me, builds the Apostolic Palace. We've got a great relationship for centuries, when, all of a sudden, the entire world DOWs on me. And they keep doing it, over and over again until the end of the game (even after I have Mass Media and build the freaking UN), apparently because I'm the infidel.

I wanted nothing more than to have Christianity spread to me so I could build its cathedrals, but it just would not happen. I never ever ran theocracy; I was mostly Pacifist (Judaism did spread to me.)

I won the game sometime in the 1950s, but I would've won earlier if I didn't have to fight so many wars, and if I'd had a third religion.

So my question is: Can one do something to be more receptive to other religions? Or maybe there could be a spy mission whereby one could, say, steal a copy of the New Testament and import a religion? All I wanted was to get along with everyone else. Sigh.

 

[Spearthrower]

You're probably lucky Christianity didn't spread to you if the rest of the world had it, or you might have been the unfortunate recipient of an AP Backdoor Diplo Win.... and would definitely have been here complaining about it!!

With an isolated placement like that, you had no real fears of invasions actually amounting to anything, so I am sure it was a far more interesting game destroying wave after wave rather than sitting back and clicking next turn until you got your culture victory....

But anyway, to answer the question: No, you couldn't have made it easier for Christianity to spread to you other than having some cities without a religion and OP and trade routes with Christian civs. Only building the AP could really have saved you from this.

 

[Neapolitan]

What I try to do to prevent this kind of situation is either build the AP myself or get Shwedagon Paya and stick with Free Religion. Also, what you could have done is to give Mass Media to the AP's owner (I've never tried this myself, but I remember hearing about people forcing the wonder to obsolete like that)

An alternative to any of this is to disable Diplomatic Victory... but what's the fun in that?

 

[zenspiderz]

Conquor a city with christ. and then build a monastry or run org religion to get a missionary from there send the missionary to one of your small but good prod cities to spread there. Rinse and repeat until you have as many christ cities as you want.

 

[eewallace]

I think Spearthrower is right--your chances of losing would have increased drastically if you had got christianity during the time when the AP was up and running and before you got the UN...

 

[magicalsushi]

I don't like the way the AI is so keen to vote to go to war with heathens. Surely they ought to take into account whether they are friends and trading partners with those heathen civs when they make their votes, but they never seem to do so. This is what annoys me most about the AP and UN - often, the AI just seem to vote 'yes' to everything just for the sake of it, without considering even their own best interests, let alone the interests of their allies.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Yeah, I hate the penalty you get voting to defy AP resolutions. I like it when I can take the AP for myself, though.

 

[bode404]

What I try to do to prevent this kind of situation is either build the AP myself or get Shwedagon Paya and stick with Free Religion. Also, what you could have done is to give Mass Media to the AP's owner (I've never tried this myself, but I remember hearing about people forcing the wonder to obsolete like that)

An alternative to any of this is to disable Diplomatic Victory... but what's the fun in that?

Considering that he aimed for a Cultural Victory, Free Religion wouldnt be so much interesting.

 

[KMadCandy]

Also, what you could have done is to give Mass Media to the AP's owner (I've never tried this myself, but I remember hearing about people forcing the wonder to obsolete like that)

from what i hear that works. i read a case yesterday where the AP resident didn't own the AP city. the resident knew MM, but because the wonder belonged to someone who didn't know MM, it wasn't obsolete. the poster had built the UN and was trying to figure out why the world kept stopping trades with him, etc. the whole thing made sense once i thought about it, but it hadn't occurred to me that situation could even happen. so, make sure to give it to the owner, no matter who the resident is *giggle*.

Considering that he aimed for a Cultural Victory, Free Religion wouldnt be so much interesting.

sometimes for a cultural victory FR is the best choice at various stages of the game.

the benefits of a state religion are:

• sistine chapel adds to the culture of state religion buildings, but if you don't have that you don't care

• you might get getting AP benefits, but the OP wasn't.

• + per city with that religion. there's a point in a standard turn-up-the-slider type culture game that happiness won't be an issue

• you can run pacificsm, that's the main reason i pick a religion if i do for a cultural game

• 1 culture/turn in each city that has the state religion, 5 culture/turn if it's the holy city

• sometimes it helps you get along with the world better

but if you're in FR (or NSR like you are at turn 0) you get 1 culture each turn from every religion in a city. you get 5 culture/turn from each holy city. usually in cultural games you want as many religions as you can get, and that's culture you're missing out on if you pick a religion. especially if your 3 legendaries include 2 or more holy cities. the main thing for me is that sometimes FR helps you get along with the world better. often that alone is enough for me to not use pacifism . if i want to build missionaries and i don't have the right monastery, i can go to OR while in NSR and still build them *giggle*. organized but undecided!

i had one game where i didn't adopt a state religion until after i got liberalism, which is the point most people go FR! but the world wasn't safe for me to pick one until folks started going FR, so i stayed in NSR and got the extra culture/religion. it worked out great: i didn't get beat up, which let me research the things i wanted to and skip silly military stuff that i'd need for self-defense, and i got enough GAs and culture that i won the game.

so having a state religion isn't a guaranteed "one true way" for a cultural victory like i think you're implying. maybe i'm misunderstanding your point.

 

[rupertmonkey]

Thanks for the replies. I was actually curious to see if I could avoid the cheesy AP victory by getting Christianity into all of my cities before the next vote. And I wondered if my nine cities would hold enough influence to prevent an AI victory.

What I really hate about the AP is that there's this stuff going on in the world that no one tells you about. Shouldn't there at least be a message telling you that the rest of the world thinks you're the infidel? I mean, you get a message in 3000 BC, maybe before you've met anybody, that a religion has been founded somewhere in the world. Shouldn't you also get a message from your good friend Hatty saying, "Though I love you, my Jewish brother, my Christian overlords have determined that I must now beat your ass, and I didn't feel like defying them"?

Or maybe the mechanics of conversion need to be tweaked a bit. You know how that annoying civ demands that you convert when you've got one lousy city with their religion in it? What if, if you agreed, that religion would automatically spread to a certain percentage of your cities? There's already a random event does that sort of thing within your own empire. Maybe the AP resident could offer that their religion would spread into X number of your cities, and war would be declared if you declined. You would risk succumbing to the cheesy AP victory, but you would avoid immediate, unending warfare, and enjoy the benefits of joining the club.

Oh God, I think I just described fourth grade gym class. I'll quit now.

 

[skallben]

Personally, I think there should be a difference depending on what civics you run. The AI:s should find Theocracy more threatening than Pacifism for instance. I think all civics should effect how much + for following a heathen religion you get from them. That is just me
And they should ease up on the dogpiling, I wan't determined autonomous single AI:s, not a big bad bunch of wolves with a collective mind.
Also, yeah the AI:s use of AP should definately be tweaked and made more compicated. As it stands it's silly.

 

[KMadCandy]

Oh God, I think I just described fourth grade gym class. I'll quit now.

biggest giggle of the day! i'm glad you pulled yourself away from hockey enough to start posting

"And I wondered if my nine cities would hold enough influence to prevent an AI victory."

in the "you may already know this, but i often throw bonus useless info into my posts" category...

the number of votes you get depends on the population of your cities with the religion in them, not just the number of cities. and, if you're a full member, you get double the votes you would if you were just a voting member. so there are a couple ways you can get more influence. of course both require actually getting access to christianity first ... these technicalities are so annoying at times!