Religion Spread & Missionaries/Great Prophets

[Fried Egg]

I'm fairly new to Civ5 but there's a few questions I have regarding religion.

Firstly, I don't understand how religion spreads generally (of it's own accord). I notice that when you hover over a city, not only can you see the number of followers of each city present but also the pressure that each religion is exerting. What is this "pressure" exactly? Does it reflect the likelyhood that additional followers will appear in that city? Where does this pressure come from, within the city itself or is it an effect of the surrounding cities?

Secondly, the computer players seem to be able to inhibit (through attrition) or even destroy my missionary in their lands but I can't seem to do anything to put the brakes on theirs without causing war. Can anyone explain this?

 

[Streams]

1. Every religious city exerts pressure on nearby cities, thus increasing the number of followers. The more tightly packed the cities, the faster the religion can propagate. Holy cities (where the religion is founded have an extra pressure). The maximum pressure range can be increased (one belief I think, and also a social policy but I'm not sure on the latter).

eg: 1 city has +6 pressure on surrounding cities; when another one is converted, that changes to +12 for the cities they both reach; if no other city is present, and it is far away from the holy city, pressure is 0.

2. Missionaries (I think also Inquisitors but not Great Prophets) suffer from Attrition, when inside foreign territory, but without open borders. Having a treaty for this eliminates attrition (which is 250 about every turn, so normally the unit is dead in 4 turns). Avoid staying too much or entering altogether. I usually go along the border until I get to a road and then scramble for the touchdown.

 

[Browd]

The seven religion articles in the War Academy should be helpful.

 

[Fried Egg]

Ah yes, I've found some of the religious articles and they were of great help.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[crazymarco]

Just a quick and funny question.

The missionaries will be spreading the active religion (the religion that the city beliefs at that turn). What if it is in an OCC game, and I have been converted to other religion(say Taoism to Christian)? Seems I cannot convert back my own religion? Coz even when I purchase missionaries or GP, they will just spread Christian in stead of Taoism. So is that means my religion had been distroyed?

Any thought?

 

[Karmah]

GPs are always from your religion regardless of the current religion from your holy city

 

[gozpel]

My OCC city was converted once by India, my pantheon didn't work anymore. But I could buy a pagoda with faith, which was pretty cool. Then "number" of turns later my city went back to the old religion.

 

[crazymarco]

And one other question.

I have found my pantheon but not yet religion. And celts at next door found religion. I take his capital city and puppet it. But his religion still keep spreading by pressure.

In the religion scroll, I cannot see what his followers belief. Can it be consider as we don't have advantage for a distroyed civilization?

 

[Browd]

When the civ that founded a religion is destroyed, the religion continues to exist, but is no longer listed in World Religions (an irritating UI defect). All you can do is go to the city view screen for the Celtic capital and mouse hover around to see what its follower beliefs seem to be (can you buy any religious buildings or military units, are there religious modifiers for food or production, etc.).

As noted in the Wiping out another religion thread, wiping out a brain-dead religion that is spreading passively can take a lot of work, and it's effectively impossible until you found and enahnce your own religion.