Mysterious Religion Conversion?

[Aotrs Commander]

Not played Civ V in quite a while and not before with Brave New World.

I have encountered something that... appears to make no sense at all.

I have reached the modern era (well ahead of the rest) and have spread my religion through all my cities and its spread to pretty much everything local; except one city-state Ike, which is religious and of a different religion and apparently the only city in the immediate area with that religion.

All of a sudden, one city quite close to my capital suddenly converted. I chalked that up to something I'd just not checked, grabbed a missionary I had left and started to move it back... And then the next turn, the next city along converted. Given that city is not connected to the city state by a trade route (and the pull and push of the relgions appeared to be equal the last time I checked), and all the surrounding cities are mine (and have my religion) I can't fathom how that could have happened.

Reloading, I noticed that the second city was abruptly converting from 20 (out of 21) followers of my religion to 12 of another, apparently for no reason. I suspect if I drop back a save or two, I'll see the same in the first city.

Both cities have pretty much maxed out their build queues and the moment, and both have a pagoda and a cathedral, so it's not like I can build anything else.

I - just so happened, fortunately - to have enough Faith to buy an inquisitor. I send this to the first city and wiped out the religion... And the second city still converted the next round. (And that there next city in line is my captial.)

What's going on? Is there some sort of stealth great person around? I didn't think it was possible to instantly convert via missionary from one religion to another (assuming that there is actually a missionary I can't see...) - otherwise what would be the point of inquistors? I couldn't see anything in the in-game help to shed any light on this.

(The only mod I've got up is the in-game editor.)

 

[danaphanous]

what you described is exactly what a great prophet does. Nothing else can convert 20 population of your religion to 12 of another and that's exactly what it looks like when they do it. Great prophets can also move through your territory despite not having open borders (though normally you can SEE them)

Go to the AI that has that religion and go to "discuss". If the option now is there "stop converting my cities" then you will know there is a prophet of theirs doing it for sure.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

what you described is exactly what a great prophet does. Nothing else can convert 20 population of your religion to 12 of another and that's exactly what it looks like when they do it. Great prophets can also move through your territory despite not having open borders (though normally you can SEE them)

Go to the AI that has that religion and go to "discuss". If the option now is there "stop converting my cities" then you will know there is a prophet of theirs doing it for sure.

Right. I'll go back, do that and have a close look tomorrow, see if I can spot it. I can only assume that the prophet is hiding in my city and is obscured by the garrision unit or something... But I didn't think was possible. And I don't recall seeing anything sailing into that area as I was scanning around recently.

It sounds as though it must be a Great Prophet, which is what I'd wondered; unless it had been some kind of espionage (but two turns in a row and one of them in one of the very few cities I've got spies in on counter-episonage...)