Natural Religion Spread

[Gidoza]

While I like the idea of the CBP religion spread system, I find it awfully weak. Whereas in Vanilla you could realistically use spread as a weapon, in CBP you kind of...can't. Trade routes strike me as equally unimpressive. And as soon as you're dealing with a water map - forget about it. Throw on to this the fact that religious buildings give 20% resistance (Or is this just for Missionaries?), and spreading with religion naturally is nigh impossible unless your neighbor has a wall of cities next to yours. Spreading to one's own cities is barely feasible without road connections!

I don't have any major thoughts other than to pull back somewhat on the distance penalty. Anyone willing to share their thoughts and experiences with this? My experience is simply as follows: I play the religion game as if spread doesn't exist and never has.

 

[CrazyG]

The game is designed that you have to use missionaries. It was made this way because whoever had the first religion was spreading too easily.

I could see passive pressure get buffed a little bit later on, as currently its a pretty minor benefit unless playing as India, and even for India with a massive 54 pressure per turn with trade routes, it takes forever to flip cities.

 

[Gidoza]

The game is designed that you have to use missionaries. It was made this way because whoever had the first religion was spreading too easily.

I could see passive pressure get buffed a little bit later on, as currently its a pretty minor benefit unless playing as India, and even for India with a massive 54 pressure per turn with trade routes, it takes forever to flip cities.

Yes, I appreciate the point of forced-use missionaries, and I like this. Noted.

I suppose, to change the theme slightly then, the problem is that things like Churches with +50% spread are a wasteful pick when they're increasing diddly by 50%. If we're going to have religion picks that focus on natural spreading, then it makes sense to me that these picks should be meaningfully weaponizing. And to point to India - yeah, this is another case where I *expect* the natural spread to be weaponized.

 

[tu_79]

They still help. Cities that are receiving pressure are easier to convert. Churches best feature is giving missionaries +1 spread action.

But where passive spread shines most is keeping your cities loyal. Pick Piety opener, and the passive pressure among your own cities is enough to make them resilient against simple missionaries. In other words, while taking Piety, you can save faith points in inquisitors, so you can dedicate more resources to religious attacks.