Missionary Diplomacy Penalty

[SS-18 ICBM]

I've been wondering. If you want to play peacefully, when is it worth taking the diplo hits for the bonuses provided by religion? Do civs become hostile quickly with this approach with war an inevitability? Or are they just slightly annoyed by it?

 

[smellymummy]

quickly hostile, then in my experience it's most always followed by war.

though at the missionary stage of the game my army is usually smaller than the AI's and I always reply that my prophets and missionaries will go where they please. i'm sure this has something to do with it

but never slightly annoyed

 

[Peacemongerer]

I've done it 4 or 5 times... never started a war doing it. Even when the AI was slightly stronger than me.

 

[AriochIV]

In my first experience, the other civilization protested and I agreed to stop. The incident persisted as a penalty, but it did not fatally damage the relationship.

In the second experience, I refused to stop. The relationship went from Friendly to Hostile, and I was denounced. There was no war, but I totally outclassed the other civilization militarily, and this "Friendly" leader (Boudicca) had attacked me previously.

 

[Smokeybear]

In my first experience, the other civilization protested and I agreed to stop. The incident persisted as a penalty, but it did not fatally damage the relationship.

My first GnK game, I got a shiny new prophet, and sent him over to Ghandi to start converting the heathens to my new religion. Ghandi, however, didn't like me stealing away his hindus to christianity. He never forgave me that for the rest of the game, which went over 1100 turns. Moral of the story- economic and military insults may have a limited shelf-life, but mess with somebody's religion, and they NEVER forget.

Memo to Ghandi: If you hadn't been such a turd to me for the next 800 turns, I wouldn't have been forced to raze two-thirds of your cities and pillage all of their improvements too. Just sayin.

 

[headcase]

Just in case someone doesn't know: you can spread to civs that do NOT have their own world religion without penalty, in fact, they'll appreciate it if you have the majority of their cities following it. CSs who follow your religion have less influence decay (and influence might go up faster, I'm not sure), and there is also a CS quest to have them follow your religion.

On the flip side, some AIs like to spread their religion to you whether you have your own world religion or not. Unlike the AI, humans are unable to show their displeasure at this.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Can't you not just bribe the ai's that got unhappy then you spread your religion to keep them cotent with you. It may not be worth it but sometimes it could be worth it because you will get a bigger founder belife and they can't spread their religion which give yours less competition.

Religous presure will convert the people without any diplomatic penalaty which may be a way to dominate the other religions even in thier home turf.

 

[Drawmeus]

You can also convert everyone who doesn't mind being converted (isn't spreading their own religion) around them, and passively convert their cities...

But the trick to keeping the AI happy with you in this case is, as always, have a stronger military than them.

 

[Civ'ed]

If you can make up with quite a bit of cash, I suppose so.
However, it's not necessarily immediate war. with me nothing happened until he (Genghis) attacked the Vatican.

 

[AriochIV]

The diplomatic bonus for sharing a religion isn't the game-changer that it was in Civ IV. So far in my games, the difference between someone who follows the same religion and a different one has not been noticeable at all.

 

[LordOgre]

My first GnK game, I got a shiny new prophet, and sent him over to Ghandi to start converting the heathens to my new religion. Ghandi, however, didn't like me stealing away his hindus to christianity. He never forgave me that for the rest of the game, which went over 1100 turns. Moral of the story- economic and military insults may have a limited shelf-life, but mess with somebody's religion, and they NEVER forget.

Memo to Ghandi: If you hadn't been such a turd to me for the next 800 turns, I wouldn't have been forced to raze two-thirds of your cities and pillage all of their improvements too. Just sayin.

LOL love the memo to Ghandi

 

[Smokeybear]

On the flip side, some AIs like to spread their religion to you whether you have your own world religion or not. Unlike the AI, humans are unable to show their displeasure at this.

Not through the diplomacy interface, but bullets, shells, bombs and nukes work pretty well to get the message across. Worked for me.

 

[AriochIV]

Not through the diplomacy interface, but bullets, shells, bombs and nukes work pretty well to get the message across. Worked for me.

Well, it's kind of like spanking a cat for doing something wrong... it may make you feel better, but the cat didn't understand why it was being spanked. It just thinks you're a jerk.

And unfortunately, so do all the other cats.

 

[Babri]

Well, it's kind of like spanking a cat for doing something wrong... it may make you feel better, but the cat didn't understand why it was being spanked. It just thinks you're a jerk.

And unfortunately, so do all the other cats.

I liked your analogy Arioch.

 

[jjkrause84]

I've been wondering. If you want to play peacefully, when is it worth taking the diplo hits for the bonuses provided by religion? Do civs become hostile quickly with this approach with war an inevitability? Or are they just slightly annoyed by it?

It's another unnecessary and frustrating penalty that serves no purpose but to anger the player. What's the point of having missionaries if actually using them is WORSE than being a warmonger!?

 

[Smokeybear]

Well, it's kind of like spanking a cat for doing something wrong... it may make you feel better, but the cat didn't understand why it was being spanked. It just thinks you're a jerk.

And unfortunately, so do all the other cats.

And unfortunately, we have no other tools available to clue them in. And cats are definitely more intelligent than the AI civs in this game, who are more akin to termites or cockroaches. Usually, the only thing that will get their attention is a good ol' can of RAID.

See: bullets, bombs, nukes.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, I wish we could communicate the same messages. It's one thing that might be better for both sides. Or they could just automatically ignore it like they do the Don't Settle request.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Ultimately, religious dominance comes down to founding first. If you want to select beliefs like Ceremonial Burial that depend on spread, then found first, let pressure take care of the rest. I haven't bought missionaries a lot. Prophets make more impact: I'll use a prophet if there is a cluster of city-states somewhere else on the continent, convert them together, that gets you a long term satellite pressure point that will convert a few neighboring cities.

The worst AI for aggressively heathenizing my holy city so far has been The Mayans.

 

[MrKez]

Polynesia got pissed because I was converting his cities. He made me promise to send my missionaries elsewhere yet he converted one of mine numerous times. When I sent my inquisitor in, he accused me of breaking my promise. WTH?? Is there a way to prevent my cities from being converted. I built all the religious structures. Temple, Hagia Sophia, Pagodas etc. . . I had to keep buying inquisitors to get rid of the heresy.

On another note, if I convert an AI's city to my religion, does he get my bonuses like +1 food from camps or whatever?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Huh, I wonder if him getting mad at your Inquisitor is an intended feature. You could just station the Inquisitor in the city where he's trying to convert.