Prophets are better than Missionaries, but same strength?

[ilik]

They both have same religious strength, but I send a prophet to shoo off the Protestantism that Poland is spreading, and it works like a charm! I converted 2 cities back to Atheism (my religion), and my religion went right back from the dumps, and now 4/6 of my cities follow Atheism, while 2 follow Protestantism. But the thing is, I checked and they both have 1000 religious strength.

Anyone else notice?

 

[crazymarco]

Prophets will eliminate all other religious followers in a city when spreading, while missionaries won't.
That's why you can spread your religion more effective with a prophets.

 

[civ54lyfe]

my impression of Missionaries is that they're not very useful unless you're slowy converting a low priority CS in the boonies or battling Religious Pressure from AI's in CS's on your periphery. this story changes a lot when you play a hardcore Religion civ like Byzantium. stronger Missionaries + you can build tons of them. otherwise they suck

 

[Astennu]

I thought religious strength solely applied to the hitpoints of the missionary or prophet, not how strong their conversion was. Moving them through a Civ's territory that you don't have open borders with will decrease their strength by 250 each turn until they are eliminated.

As far as converting cities, Prophets are without a doubt much stronger, hence the added cost.

 

[PrimoXanthous]

Prophets are like Missionary+Inquisitor they eliminate all other religion in that particular City then spread your Religion(vice versa if you captured an enemy Prophet then use it in your City.) Well there is a way that makes Missionary much better than your prophet in spreading Religion. When you found A religion choose Holy Order as Enhancer, then Evangelism as your Reformation, with these you can bought a Missionary and inquisitor as low as 140 faith, then this would allow your missionary to erode the existing other religion in that particular City, Also if you adopt the policy "Mandate of Heaven" you could buy your Missionary for 110 faith, if your lucky to start on a desert tile and take Desert Folklore as your pantheon or you Start near any NW and adopt One with Nature, well you could spawn Missionaries every 3-4 turns.

 

[ilik]

I thought religious strength solely applied to the hitpoints of the missionary or prophet, not how strong their conversion was. Moving them through a Civ's territory that you don't have open borders with will decrease their strength by 250 each turn until they are eliminated.

As far as converting cities, Prophets are without a doubt much stronger, hence the added cost.

If a Prophet moves through somewhere without open borders, it's strength doesn't diminish.

But the whole reason for this thread is that they start with same strength, so why are Prophets stronger?

 

[PrimoXanthous]

But the whole reason for this thread is that they start with same strength, so why are Prophets stronger?

Because they have the ability same as inquisitor,
Prophets = Missionary+Inquisitor

 

[ilik]

Because they have the ability same as inquisitor,
Prophets = Missionary+Inquisitor

I'm talking about their strength in SPREADING religion.

 

[Browd]

They have the same strength when spreading religion -- to cities that have no followers of other religions. Attached are two screenshots of a city with no religious followers and a Missionary and a Great Prophet poised to convert the city.

As you know, you can mouse hover over the conversion button to see how many followers will result from the conversion. In the images you will see that both the Missionary and the Great Prophet will convert 4 of the 6 citizens in that city to Shinto.

The place where Great Prophets shine is in converting cities with some number of followers of another religion. Missionaries are often quite ineffective vs. cities with well-entrenched religions -- they might only scratch out 1 or 2 followers (essentially converting a few non-believers). Great Prophets will purge the city of other religions before converting the citizenry.

 

[Astennu]

If a Prophet moves through somewhere without open borders, it's strength doesn't diminish.

But the whole reason for this thread is that they start with same strength, so why are Prophets stronger?

Actually that is a good point, I've never seen a prophet suffer attrition.

Does religious strength affect how much they can convert? If not and it only refers to hitpoints it seems a bit odd since prophets don't seem to lose their strength/hp at all whereas missionaries do.

 

[Browd]

Missionaries suffer attrition, but also have more movement points, so they are better able to zip around the map and get to neutral territory before the attrition fairy steals 250 of their conversion strength.

Prophets don't suffer attrition, but they move so, so, so slowly across the map. Late game, when you have airports, Great Prophets redeem themselves, since they can fly across the map much more quickly and, at that point, they are more cost-effective than Missionaries (on a faith cost/conversion basis).