Religion spread

[Sephlock]

First off, is it just me, or do religions seldom spread on their own in BTS? It HAS been a while, but I do seem to recall religions spontaneously spreading of their own accord fairly frequently in vanilla Civ 4...

Secondly, how do you guys handle spreading your religion? In the game I just played, I beelined for Monotheism so I could spread my religion around with missionaries, and Asoka (who had founded a rival religion) ended up getting his religion in the cities of every single neighbor before I could, despite being roughly the same distance from them.

;_;.

Its such a pain to get the AIs to convert to your religion, and until they do, they hate you... what am I supposed to do here?

Also, do you guys send military escorts with your missionaries? Sometimes the nearest neighbor is quite some distance away... or is it not worth converting them to my religion then?

It seems to me like unless you go all out with spreading your religion (thus falling behind in other areas) the AI will spread its own religions like wildfire and you'll end up with a tiny cult rather than a full blown religion...

Also, I've been having problems managing my economy in early game lately... so any advice in that area would be great (I only mention this because getting a great prophet and making my religion's special building is one of the methods that I tried for avoiding an economic crash).

 

[Bast]

I've had the same problems. What's worse. I've had few occasions when my missionary failed to spread in a city that already had 1 religion. Correct me if I'm wrong but this used to be very rare? I thought it was only when you had 2 religions that the failure rate went up?

I only really spread religions in fact, go for religions if I'm going for religious/diplomatic victory and I've been on island maps so haven't had problems with barbs.

If I'm not going for that victory I let them spread to me and besides I have other techs I want to be concentrating on.

 

[Bast]

I think they might've made the spread rate less now that AI aggressively spreads through missionaries. You see them missionaries all the time now. This is great if you're not going for religions because it saves you time and hammers. Let your nearest AI neighbour do all the work of founding and spreading religions.

 

[con]

yes religions spread on their own

were you connected to your neighbors with road or river or coast(with sailing)? asoka probably got your neighbors because he was connected

spread religion with missionaries and then send spies to influence religion so he will switch to your religion

i dont send military with missionaries

try to convert religious fanatics like, isabela or saladin and they will spread your religion for you

about early economy, get pottery early and start spaming cottages and also dont overexpand that can criple your economy

 

[Bast]

yes religions spread on their own

were you connected to your neighbors with road or river or coast(with sailing)? asoka probably got your neighbors because he was connected

spread religion with missionaries and then send spies to influence religion so he will switch to your religion

i dont send military with missionaries

try to convert religious fanatics like, isabela or saladin and they will spread your religion for you

about early economy, get pottery early and start spaming cottages and also dont overexpand that can criple your economy

We know religions spread on their own. But they seldom do now.

 

[Polycrates]

On the other hand, I've found that AIs are now quite fanatical about spreading their own religions with armies of missionaries flooding over the borders. Can be very nice if you don't have a religion, but can make founding an early religion a fairly bad move, since it takes a lot of work to keep up with that amount of prosyletising and you're likely to be left diplomatically isolated.

 

[Sephlock]

How do you guys keep up with the tech race + the arms race + the land rush?

I tend to lag behind in one of the above areas (usually arms).

 

[PibbZ]

How do you guys keep up with the tech race + the arms race + the land rush?

I tend to lag behind in one of the above areas (usually arms).

Same here, i guess its one of the risks you have to take. Increase effectivity in one or two areas at the cost of the third. I tend to overexpand early, having all my cities (usually a number between 8 and 12 on a huge map - marathon speed) before 10 AD, while focusing on research.

Eventually the economy will be a total mess, thats when i start building units in my production city and stop researching for a while when my cities grow and build research and wealth buildings. This way im allowed to improve my research on a steady basis back to 80ish%.

And most important, trade with your neighbours during this period. Sell then everything for gold and gold pr turn, except maybe your most valuable techs if you got any. (like for example i never sell feudalism or techs that makes them a competitor for some wonders i want).

I seem pretty stuck with this kind of playstyle, and i know it would NOT work in multiplayer so im always up for feedback. Learning a few niec tips & tricks every day on these forums

 

[Horace]

In my current game ive found my religion has spread to lots of my neighbours bordering cities

 

[Leo Tang]

I think religion spread fairly good in my game
I think the most important thing is that u need to have trade route open as soon as possible. religion spread throught trade routes at a amazing rate. Sailing is a very important tech, even u got no costal cities; rivers flows to oceans and therefore if u have scout right, u can have a very early trade route.

Building the shine helps the spreading MORE faster. Get a prophet quick.

As to missionary, i have heard, and believe (by my experience) that a missionary with no movement point used, i.e., it is stationary for at least one turn, have a higher convertion chance.
And finally, the Apostalic Palace is a MUST. Not only u would have votings (real nice as to the game dynamics), but the AI knows how to gains its weighting in the votings: They spread the religion for u!. I have a game that hinduism is the AP relgion and i spread one to oversea French, who has the confucius holy city. By the time i won (an AP diplomatic victory), up to 80% of french cities had hinduism.

So, three things to increase ur religion population in the world:
Find trade routes ASAP
Get a Prophet quick
Build the AP

I hope u find this helping

 

[DomA]

A religion can still spread on its own as fast as ever (I've seen lightning fast even, because some civs will spread it a lot more systematically than they used to in Vanilla/Warlords), but I find there's a lot more variation in the religious pattern from one game to the next. It won't happen the same way in every game, and there are more "patterns" you might encounter. It depends on the map, it depends massively on who is in the game etc.

With Warlords, the player was more or less at the helm concerning religions. Beside the diplomatic angle that could go out of hand, the player was the only one to use religions in a strategy for culture/financial boost. In BTS it's trickier because AI civs will use religions strategically too, and if you're not careful they can win or become serious problems using religion.

In one game with 4 civs on the continent, I managed to convert the Chinese who had adopted Jao II's religion initially. It worked, but despite the fact he had my religion in more of his cities, he switched back to Jao's later for strategic reasons.

I've had games where I won the race to two early religions and the AI rivals that now go for cultural victory if they can (eg: Elizabeth, Isabella) adopted my state-religion and spread it like crazy (Isabella tends to be fanatical whether she is the founder or not, and to spread it outside her civ - she can ruin a cautious strategy to spread your religion only to a few cities for diplomatic victory; Elizabeth may use religion in a cultural strategy instead - in some games I've seen her spread all the religions she could get in all her cities and build multiple cathedrals not in three but six cities... when I realized she was nearing cultural victory, I conquered her third near-legendary city only to discover she had a back up, and another, and another.... I finally understood why she had fallen massively behind in tech after the renaissance... she must have put her culture slider very high once she got Music.). It was a costly war to stop her.

The spiritual leaders with a religion will now seek early open borders and use missionaries a lot to spread it worlwide, but they will be cautious doing so with Civs that have a religion of their own and might even skip spreading it to your civ until the late game. That's probably what happened in your game. Asoka beat you to the initial spread, and once that happened, the civs that had adopted his religion didn't help you one bit to spread yours. If it's not too late, I wouldn't let them get the AP. It won't be very powerful for you if you get it, but not owning it could be disastrous, especially if you don't manage to get Asoka's religion.

Using religion as a "cash cow" through a shrine and the SM and spreading your religion indiscrimately can't be done as easily as before, not with/against any leader. It works pêrfectly well in some games, but it's courting disaster in others (might even force you to switch to a military strategy to prevent others from a diplo or cultural victory). The AI "understands" this strategy now, and some leaders will counter it. In some games, I noticed more leaders than usual switching to Theocracy when a rival got a shrine or the Spiral Minaret, especially if the builder is already in the lead. Some will stick to Theocracy until Mass Media to block a diplomatic victory if someone else build the AP and they don't have its religion yet.

 

[DomA]

Same here, i guess its one of the risks you have to take. Increase effectivity in one or two areas at the cost of the third. I tend to overexpand early, having all my cities (usually a number between 8 and 12 on a huge map - marathon speed) before 10 AD, while focusing on research.

The problem is overexpansion and I did that too earlier on. I always feared all the territory would be taken if I didn't. I avoided "open borders" like the plague too, which was an error. With BTS it got me killed often enough I adapted.

The Dutch (Financial/Creative) is a good civ to use to try to unlearn this play style. They usually start in a good spot on the coast, which gives you a small early tech boost (3x and a chance at the early religions), the library are cheap and the dikes will help a great deal in the late game with the production of a modern army. Try them with 3 or 4 carefully located cties only before the AD era - the four cities will often be larger than most of your expansive rivals's population. You may build the Oracle and lightbulb Code of Law for the courthouses that you'll build in the four cities before expanding. Build the Great Lighthouse. One, preferably two of the four cities will be productive and focus on the units (the 3-4 cities will be much better defended than you could afford to defend 12) - with at least one financial city (out of your 4) with as many early built cottages as possible that usually puts you in a fairly good financial position for a big wave of expansion in early AD (with courthouses built as soon as possible), with a fair tech advance and a decent defensive army.

 

[Sephlock]

Ya I find it hard to strike a balance between overexpansion and underexpansion.

Generally I either end up with three cities, or WAY TOO MANY. Usually three, though . How can anyone hope to get stonehenge and still end up with a decent chunk of land?