Religious Texts and Itinerant Preachers

[moors]

Can Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers make a city follow your religion ?

I gain a lot of faith(31/turn in turn 100) and I have Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion and Pagodas: Use Faith to purchase Pagodas (+2 Faith, +2 Culture, +2 Happiness). I will choose Cathedrals: Use Faith to purchase Cathedrals (+1 Faith, +3 Culture, +1 Happiness, Artist Specialist slot) and I'm aiming a cultural victory.

Which enhancer belief do you suggest me ?

The game is on emperor difficulty, duel map and it has 6 civilizations. There must be 2 continents. My score is 691 and 2 others have 484 and 296 but the one with 296 have an army not to be trifled with and they may take a city of the other civilization soon.

 

[Browd]

Frankly, both are really powerful, so you're not going to go wrong with either choice. Religious Texts will spread to closer cities more quickly than IP, but IP will reach more far flung cities more quickly. If cities on your continent (your cities, AI cities and CSs) are reasonably close together, I would go with RT. If there is a lot of open space on the continent, I would go with IP.

 

[The Pilgrim]

emperor difficulty, duel map and it has 6 civilizations

rt.

 

[Browd]

Ah, I missed the duel map -- tightly packed civs and probably no CSs. Definitely RT.

 

[pilot00]

Religious texts, if you have borders with them (as seems to be the case here). They can do nothing against the buildup pressure...Actually they can do two things: Either spend faith on prophets, Inqs to keep their cities or DoW you but that is still playing into your hands.

 

[joncnunn]

For RT vs IP; both of these are my top 2 choices, and the only time I'd pick something other than these two is if I'm forced to.

I always find (without mods) that at the time I enhance my religion my capital hasn't yet converted any other city yet.
(And so initially it is a choice between my capital sending more pressure to the same cities or it continuing to produce the same pressure for those cities but also adding it to cities 11 to 13 hexes away.)

Accordingly, if I'm not wanting to build any missionaries (say I either have low per turn faith output or else I've chosen as a follower belief something that consumes faith points), then I'll always prefer RT. (RT will boot strap itself faster than IP)
Otherwise if I am intending to build a few missionaries then I take a global view, counting cities in 11-13 range vs the 1-10 range and make my decision accordingly.

 

[kirbdog]

Itinerant Preachers:

Superior in the range where Religious Texts doesn't reach the next city.
Superior in the range where the second city BEHIND or lateral to your border religious city ALSO reaches the next city, creating a double influence effect (EXTREMELY COMMON).

Religious Texts:

Superior in the range where you can't get the 2nd city effect but you are close enough.

~~~~

Bottom Line: Itinerant Preachers is almost always better than Religious Texts, due to the way that the AI packs cities together with high density for double influence effects (combined with some free far-range influence).

 

[Maxym]

Situational both are very good, look at the map for city placement, CS and future cities and evaluate. If you decide to go with IP be prepared to spread with one missionary. Once you do that it's almost unstoppable. Wu just checked my RT religion, first founded and enhanced with her IP in DC 21, and she didn't even try. Hoping PP will help out whenever I get to it.

 

[pilot00]

Just finished a game where faith was a big shaker. Selassie had the lead on faith and in turn culture (and science till middle game) and could spam missionaries and prophets.

The map was Pangaea and I was lucky to be away from his sights till I got my first Inquisitor. Anyway long story short: The entire world was divided into 3 religious groups by the end. Selassie had converted a whooping 58 cities and I had 22. Siam had one (ironic it was not their capital since I had that and used an inq) and Monty had still his capital. A few turns before the end Greece had its capital too but more on that below.

Our beliefs were:

Selassie: Aescheticism, Itinerant preachers, world church, goddess of protection, cathedrals.

Mine: Tithe, choral music, messiah, divine inspiration, fertility rights.

The very fact that he was capable of spreading it so far and wide meant that almost the entire planet was following his religion and could cause humongous pressure. He almost got the victory by culture too. If I hadn't had divine inspiration and the production to chuck every wonder in the capital below 12 turns, I doubt my inquisitors and prophets could have achieved those 22 cities.

Athens(which was a holy city) was surrounded and was receiving 144 pressure to giving 44! And we are talking about a holy city!

Both abilities are quite powerful but preachers seems to have an edge on Pangaea. Want to play Byzantium to take both now

Bottom Line: Itinerant Preachers is almost always better than Religious Texts, due to the way that the AI packs cities together with high density for double influence effects (combined with some free far-range influence).

And pretty much that summarizes my experience from the above game. So I switch my opinion in favor of preachers.

 

[Deau]

Can Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers make a city follow your religion ?

Yes and no, "pressure" will convert citizens slowly and a city will follow your religion once 50% or more of its citizens follow its religion. At low difficulty where AI doesn't spread its religion with missionaries/prophets, RT&IP each will contribute to spreading faster but even without it, you will still have pressure going on all cities within 10 tiles of any city where you have 1+ follower.

Pressure generated is independent from the FPT a city produces. It is solely dependant on how many followers are in the city. As such, if you manually spread the religion to 2 extra cities with a missionary and wind up doubling the total number of followers in all cities, you will significantly increase your pressure on all cities within 10 (IP 13) tiles of all those cities.

So depending on your difficulty, you will or will not be able to spread religion without using at least a few missionaries. However, the lower the difficulty, the more on going pressure you will get from using one or two missionaries (or a GP) very early in the game and pairing that with RT/IP.

RT/IP are still by far the strongest religion spreaders in the game but they do require you to help spread early to get very high ongoing pressure.

As people have mentioned, for your map setup, you will likely benefit more from RT, unless the cities on the other continent are between 10-13 tiles from your capital and some other cities on your continent. In that case, IP will allow you to outreach pressure to the other continent which RT won't

 

[joncnunn]

Pressure generated is independent from the FPT a city produces. It is solely dependant on how many followers are in the city

Pressure generated is independent from FPT; but an increased number of followers doesn't increase pressure generated either.
Instead every city that has a majority religion (and its to a higher level of precision that is shown on the interface) spreads the same X amount of influence to all cities within range.
The only exception is that presence of Grand Temple counts as 2 cities. (In addition, the holy city has internal pressure on itself.)

 

[Maxym]

Yes and no, "pressure" will convert citizens slowly and a city will follow your religion once 50% or more of its citizens follow its religion.
RT/IP are still by far the strongest religion spreaders in the game but they do require you to help spread early to get very high ongoing pressure.

As people have mentioned, for your map setup, you will likely benefit more from RT, unless the cities on the other continent are between 10-13 tiles from your capital and some other cities on your continent. In that case, IP will allow you to outreach pressure to the other continent which RT won't

yes IP will be better at spreading at distance but that's not it's main advantage, it's generating huge pressures at their borders due to multiple overlaps. RT covers 100 tiles and IP 169 tiles and once new cities are being plumped late game in marginal slots it boosts IP even more, those 1pop cities turn religious quickly. You can disrupt it with GPr targeting core large IP cities and if you have backup from your nearby RT cities and PPress then that might be enough to turn the tide and then just guard against missionaries and GPs. Thats what I am working on in DC21

 

[sufficiency]

RT is a little better if your religion is a bit late.

 

[Monthar]

Lately, I've been taking Holy Order (cheaper missionaries and inquisitors) over both IP and RT, if it's still there when I enhance. This lets me seed more cities and I've found that my religion tends to spread just as well and in many cases even better.

 

[Maxym]

That's a good one too, especially if not choosing a faith sink like pagodas, and having room to spread. Messiah is good if you are very late to found and face established religions.

 

[Deau]

Lately, I've been taking Holy Order (cheaper missionaries and inquisitors) over both IP and RT, if it's still there when I enhance. This lets me seed more cities and I've found that my religion tends to spread just as well and in many cases even better.

That's a good one too, especially if not choosing a faith sink like pagodas, and having room to spread. Messiah is good if you are very late to found and face established religions.

Pretty much, early religion rolling is the key to late game pressure. 140 faith early missionaries can get you impressive early pressure. If the land is packed tight enough, this may be enough to make holy order better than IT/RT.

IT and RT are mostly tools to keep your absurd pressure up through ages. Having either and just a single city will still f you over. The thing about holy order vs rt or ip is that unless you are quite wide and picked a faith-spender follower bonus, you really don't need your early game faith for anything but missionaries so if it comes down to the late game against an aggressive spreader AI, then you will likely slowly lose grounds over time since the human player shouldn't/wouldn't really manually spread once GPs are unlocked.

 

[Deau]

yes IP will be better at spreading at distance but that's not it's main advantage, it's generating huge pressures at their borders due to multiple overlaps. RT covers 100 tiles and IP 169 tiles and once new cities are being plumped late game in marginal slots it boosts IP even more, those 1pop cities turn religious quickly. You can disrupt it with GPr targeting core large IP cities and if you have backup from your nearby RT cities and PPress then that might be enough to turn the tide and then just guard against missionaries and GPs. Thats what I am working on in DC21

Spreading area isn't a square centered on the cities o.o 100 vs 169 tiles is very innacurate. The concept of adding pressure from more cities is why IP is roughly equal to RT for all cities within 10 tiles. The early pressure on far reached cities is why IP>RT. It's an added benefit often chopping turns for 1-2-3 followers. It's also sick for city-based founder beliefs (like church property) because it will often convert the first citizen of a newly found city "out of RT reach" very fast and get your pressure rolling from there, effectively helping you turnover cities in-between that had high followers of a different religion.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Question: For RT Who has to research Printing press for the extra bonus
1. The founder
2. The owner of the "Sending" city
3. The owner of the "Receiving" city
4. Anyone in the game

 

[Browd]

Founder

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Founder

Do you happen to know how that works in "Into the Renaissance".. since the Founder is City States.