Shrines - they "spread religion", but what are the mechanics?

praktik

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 29, 2007
Messages
27
Hey all!

Ok - so I've had a REALLY fun game going, one that kept me up til 4:30 last night, for which I am now paying with heavy fatigue.

In any event, I'm Peter, playing a 2-continent hemisphere map on Prince. My two co-habiting civs, Pericles and Sitting Bull, are Hindu - and though I discovered Christianity and Confucianism, I've been Hindu ever since Sitting Bull demanded I convert. So I did. Every city on the continent has Hindu, and the shrine is controlled by Alexander - which is looking pretty tasty.

At the moment, I have a pretty nice tech and military lead, but its 1860, and I think I let the peace go on a little long (there hasn't been any conflict between any of us on this continent the WHOLE GAME!).

Anyway - this extended peace allowed me to spam both confucian and christian missionaries, so that every city on the continent is now both Hindu and Christian, and I'd say I got to around 6/7ths or 7/8ths of the continent with my confucian guys before Sitting Bull closed our open borders (the only sign of discord yet).

So I'm a relatively new player, and even though I've put in mad hours for months, there's still little things that have escaped my notice that pop up from time to time. I didn't realize the cash of a shrine was dependent on the number of cities with the religion, and now I got a fully loaded (on this continent anyway) Christian shrine and a pretty good Confucian shrine.

But as I was spamming missionaries, I noticed that my job was made a bit easier - especially as the number of non-christian cities went down as the non-stop Jesus-love-spreading continued. So for example, when my missionary got to the farthest reaches of Alexanders territory I noticed my job was easier - a few cities I hadn't sent a guy to were already christian.

Now Pericles could have been doing it on his own, but I'm guessing it was the "spread religion" effect thats listed in the Shrine characteristics.

How does this work? Am I correct in assuming that this effect is more powerful the more money the shrine is bringing in (it did not seem to be doing as much of this when Christianity was not as widely spread)? How can you enhance this "missionary-less spreading"?

I had my christian shrine first, but I noticed more cities in my empire were "naturally" turned Confucian by this effect, and maybe only one (or none) were done in my own empire by the Christian shrine. What explains that? They were both at about the same level, why did the confucian shrine seem better at spreading within my empire at that early stage?

ALSO: Its looking like a Cultural victory is gonna be the way to go - but I need to move on Pericles real fast I assume.

Its 1860 - if I capture his shrine in the next 10-20 years, it starts at zero culture. I only have seven cities, so I'll need a few more to put in the three religion culture buildings in the Hindu Shrine city I capture - is there a point where its "too late" to build up the culture before the Time victory kicks in?

My plan is to run artists and send the great artists down there for some culture bombs to get it up the early levels quick - but how long does it take since its getting late in the game now?

EDIT: just thought I'd also share another "realization" in this thread, the power of the National Park. I basically just got used to thinking of it as a "health" thing, and didnt take advantage of the fact that preserved forests give you those free specialists. Well lo-and behold, I had a size 6 city with pretty good production, but poor food resources (needed to snag some stone and gold!) and it wasn't gonna grow any bigger. Other places were doing wonders so I had no need to really chop down the forests around the town. Luckily enough, I had seven forests around the city - with the forests preserved, this city (which also has the confucian shrine - man I was angry when the religion was founded in a size 1 city with poor resources about 2 turns after I settled it!) and now I got 7 FREE MERCHANTS driving up my gold.

I'm def gonna plan for a national park city in the future!!
 
A religion can be spread via missionary or it can spread 'spontaneously'.

Spontaneous spreading i a city is possible if:
- The city is free of any religion.
- The city is connected via trade network to the Holy City (mening there exist a possible, but not necessarily active route).
- The chance of a religion spreading to the city, is higher, if the city is close to the Holy City.

A Shrine in the holy city doubles the chance that the religon spreads. This effect is fixed and does not depend on the 'size' of the Shrine.

-----

Not much point to take Pericles city to build up culture there - all the Buildings you capture - i.e. Wonders and Shrine will never produce culture. So you basicly start from Zero.

Better choose 3 of your best cities, and build up there. You can still take the Holy city from Pericles - and perhaps some more (as you said - you need religious buildings), just dont count on them for victory.

There obviously is a point where it is to late to start on... But it comes rather late in the game. I would rather worry about a AI winning before the time is up...
 
I'm not sure all that is quite right, Refar though you've got the right elements. In particular, I think there is always a chance of a religion spreading to a city. The chance is much higher for each of the following that is true:
-- each religion less than 7
-- trade route to a city with a new religion
-- proximity to the holy city
-- existence (anywhere) of the shrine

I'm not sure how it chooses which religion spreads, whether it checks for every religion not present or whether it simply sees if any religion spreads and then picks what religion. In any event, I'm 99% positive that there's always a chance and the above things simply increase the odds.

Wodan
 
By the time i was finished reading that i was so tired i went to sleep and am replying today
 
In particular, I think there is always a chance of a religion spreading to a city.

Then you think wrongly (or at least in a way that conflicts with the SDK). Cities with religions do not spontaneously convert to a different religion.

Also - trade route is mildly inaccurate terminology. Trade network connected is a bit different, since conversion can pass through closed borders (but not through war zones).


I'm not sure how it chooses which religion spreads, whether it checks for every religion not present or whether it simply sees if any religion spreads and then picks what religion.

For spontaneous spreading, it checks each discovered religion in the order they are defined in Civ4ReligionInfo.xml.


See Dona Eis Religions. I really need to finish that at some point.
 
Then you think wrongly (or at least in a way that conflicts with the SDK). Cities with religions do not spontaneously convert to a different religion.
Then how do you explain when a city with a religion gets another one? I have definitely experienced this and I know it wasn't a missionary because it was prior to caravels.

Also - trade route is mildly inaccurate terminology. Trade network connected is a bit different, since conversion can pass through closed borders (but not through war zones).
Yes, I believe you're corret.

See Dona Eis Religions. I really need to finish that at some point.
Sure. Thanks for the help.

Wodan
 
Then how do you explain when a city with a religion gets another one? I have definitely experienced this and I know it wasn't a missionary because it was prior to caravels.
AIs will sign open borders with each other and send missionaries into each other's territory too. Civs will also spread religions to cities of their own that already have a different religion.

Also, galleys can cross ocean squares if the squares are in your or a teammate's territory. (This makes fun one-way invasions possible early in low sea level island maps.)
 
Then how do you explain when a city with a religion gets another one? I have definitely experienced this and I know it wasn't a missionary because it was prior to caravels.

I don't explain it, because I've never seen anyone present credible evidence that it has occurred.

Missionary is the most obvious explanation. BTS also introduced some events that might inflict a religion upon you. Maybe the code in the SDK doesn't reflect the version of the game you are playing (either because the SDK lies, or because you've got a modded version of something).

We could find out, maybe, if we had an example to work from. What we probably need are before and after saves (setting the auto save interval to one turn will let you do this). Better would be with "random seed on reload" disabled, because that will make it easier to reproduce.
 
I was thinking wodan was right, it seems like a lot more cities are getting multiple religions, but I probably just don't notice the missionaries I suppose.
 
Then how do you explain when a city with a religion gets another one? I have definitely experienced this and I know it wasn't a missionary because it was prior to caravels.
It was a random event. Unlike the normal spread of religion, the random event ignores whether or not a city already has a religion.
 
Random event seems plausible. Missionary I don't buy because as I said it was before caravels and I was isolated. And I'm also seeing it in other games, religions popping in. I've been assuming it was missionaries that I simply didn't notice but now I'm starting to wonder. Perhaps there was an unintended change in 3.13 or Bhruic's.

Anyway I'm not trying to be difficult. If we all "kept an eye" out for this, surely one of us will be able to post an example.

Wodan
 
Back
Top Bottom