sorta n00b question regarding religion....yea, I searched first!

[Xaks]

I'm fairly new to Civ 5. A few weeks' worth, around 100 hours.

Anyhow, I read the intro thread (but can't watch video at work, so please forgive if this is answered therein), I spent about 15 minutes in the 'quick questions and answers' thread, poked around the search fields but only found answers for Civ 4 and 3.

So, even just google searching hasn't actually gotten me a definitive answer, so here goes!

Missionaries. Prophets too. How is it I can have *8* Indian missionaries within my borders and not having even an OPTION to tell that bedsheet wearing little proselytizing runt Ghandi to keep his holy hands to hisself?

I don't have open borders with anyone, yet they can come and go as they please? Why can't I shoot them or capture them without starting war?

I know I can cockblock them by surrounding them or surrounding my cities with units, but that's a horrible PITA. Same with trying to keep Inquisitors parked all over the darned place.

So, am I just missing something in the GUI, or ... holy people don't count unless you squish them?

 

[Titanis Walleri]

You actually can tell another leader to stop sending missionaries/Great Prophets by going to his or her leader screen and clicking discuss. Under dicuss, you can demand that the opponent stop spreading your religion to your lands. They will either comply or refuse.
The only way you can forcibly remove missionaries/Great Prophets is by declaring war and capturing them. But be aware that once you capture those missionaries/Great Prophets, they will still spread the enemy religion, so you should delete them.
About open borders, missionaries lose power whenever they end a turn in enemy territory that do not have open borders. This doesn't apply to Great Prophets, who do not lose power. Open borders allows a missionary to end a turn in an opponent's territories.

 

[Xaks]

You actually can tell another leader to stop sending missionaries/Great Prophets by going to his or her leader screen and clicking discuss. Under dicuss, you can demand that the opponent stop spreading your religion to your lands. They will either comply or refuse.
The only way you can forcibly remove missionaries/Great Prophets is by declaring war and capturing them. But be aware that once you capture those missionaries/Great Prophets, they will still spread the enemy religion, so you should delete them.
About open borders, missionaries lose power whenever they end a turn in enemy territory that do not have open borders. This doesn't apply to Great Prophets, who do not lose power. Open borders allows a missionary to end a turn in an opponent's territories.

I've had it happen twice now where I was mousing over a missionary in my lands, having it say "Indian Missionary", and NOT having the option of asking him to stop in the discuss screen. That's kinda why I was asking.

Plus, can you...like, pre-ask? I would rather not have to wait for one of them to show up and punk one of my cities before going to the leader and asking them to not send people! Is there a place I can tell a leader "Don't send your religious wacko's to my house" before they even get to me in the first place?

 

[Firesmacker]

You can't "pre-ask" unfortunately. And the only way to tell them not to do it is after they already have converted one of your cities which is lame in my opinion.

If they refuse, I kill the unit, war be damned. I will also do the same if they promise to stop and then do it to another city, which happens a lot too.

 

[Browd]

You cannot pre-ask another civ to stop proselytizing. You only have that diplo option after they have converted one of your cities.

EDIT: ninja'd

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

There IS a way to prevent them spreading, buy Inquisitors, I believe Inquisitors stop pressure coming into the city (or.. something like that). And the AI will get confused and avoid the city (i've noticed Maya has a tendency to go for Holy Cities often, I saw him hover around since I put an Inquisitor in my capital)

 

[Viregel]

And just because nobody said it...kill them.

 

[IkM]

And just because nobody said it...kill them.

This means war, you know

 

[Civilmyzation]

you must have an inquis on some higher difficulties. ive had it where I totally screwed up, and used my last bit of faith on a pagoda. then all of a sudden I notice a Ethiopian Great Prophet, realize I have not enough units to wall it off, and it takes my capital city's religion base ruining my religion game.

put one in your holy city, and always feel safe

 

[Bex]

It may be a PITA using inquisitors but you should at least have one in your holy city... Buy them early when they're cheap.

Depending on how your cities are arranged you can often protect several target cities with one inquisitor by moving him around when you see missionaries coming. If you don't have open borders with the civ the missionaries die quickly from attrition anyway, so blocking roads and or otherwise impeding their movement with your units helps.

 

[Browd]

There IS a way to prevent them spreading, buy Inquisitors, I believe Inquisitors stop pressure coming into the city (or.. something like that). And the AI will get confused and avoid the city (i've noticed Maya has a tendency to go for Holy Cities often, I saw him hover around since I put an Inquisitor in my capital)

Inquisitors do not combat city religious pressure, just manual conversion efforts of Great Prophets and Missionaries (less about confusion than deterrence, but enemy GPrs and Missionaries will so focus on your holy city that they often won't have a backup target and will mill around waiting for your inquisitor to go away -- as if that's going to happen).

 

[Bandersnatching]

Quick question, everybody, and a little bit of info beforehand:
I personally hate buying inquisitors as it means I am actively taking away resources I could use to better my civ (buying religious buildings) or spread my religion, though I have also found it necessary to buy at least one on higher difficulties unless I really luck out with religion on my continent or whatever.
An aggressive policy of spreading religion has always been more successful for me especially when I can spread it to neutral or only-pantheon lands before moving in on other religious territory.
So, the question: Does anybody here like using inquisitors/buy more than one for every few cities?
If so, in what strategy do you use them to increase effectiveness?
Their function is necessary but limited. It would be cool if they could nuke cities of other civs, eliminating religion wholesale rather than just removing enemy religion.

 

[Firesmacker]

And just because nobody said it...kill them.

I said it...

 

[comatosedragon]

I know I can cockblock them by surrounding them or surrounding my cities with units, but that's a horrible PITA. Same with trying to keep Inquisitors parked all over the darned place.

This is the way I learned to best deal with them, rather than wasting faith on an Inquistor. Having 5-6 units (depending on terrain) for each city also taught me to keep up with military, which is very important when moving up levels (I currently play Emperor).

 

[Browd]

Quick question, everybody, and a little bit of info beforehand:
I personally hate buying inquisitors as it means I am actively taking away resources I could use to better my civ (buying religious buildings) or spread my religion, though I have also found it necessary to buy at least one on higher difficulties unless I really luck out with religion on my continent or whatever.
An aggressive policy of spreading religion has always been more successful for me especially when I can spread it to neutral or only-pantheon lands before moving in on other religious territory.
So, the question: Does anybody here like using inquisitors/buy more than one for every few cities?
If so, in what strategy do you use them to increase effectiveness?
Their function is necessary but limited. It would be cool if they could nuke cities of other civs, eliminating religion wholesale rather than just removing enemy religion.

If I'm playing cultural (minimal conquering/puppeting), I may buy 1 inquisitor for my capital ... maybe. If I'm conquering, I'll buy several inquisitors to extinguish holy city status of capitals/holy cities I've conquered.

 

[Civilmyzation]

yeah I only recommend the one. I actually never buy inquis or miss other than just the 1 because I prefer to let the religion spread passive or via great prophets that pop out/via wonder. id rather use my faith on specialists and early game pagodas. as long as you have one Inquis, you know you won't lose your base religion.

 

[Ryoga]

But be aware that once you capture those missionaries/Great Prophets, they will still spread the enemy religion, so you should delete them.

A minor correction: Do not delete enemy prophets if they still have all of their 4 spread religion uses. You can create a holy site with them for additional faith.

Also as Sweden you can gift them to city states regardless of their status.

So, the question: Does anybody here like using inquisitors/buy more than one for every few cities?

I almost never buy inquisitors for purposes other than removing religion from a conquered city (especially holy capitals), but whenever I know my neighbor is an aggressive religious proselytizer I buy one, just in case he decides to go for my capital.

 

[bcaiko]

Just a note: only Great Prophets can come and go as they please without taking attrition damage. If you tie up a Missionary in your borders (and you don't have open borders with that Civ), it will die of attrition in four turns or less.

 

[Walter R]

In a recent game I conquered Edinburgh (and then went on to conquer the rest of her cities). Unsurprisingly it was a holy city for Christianity. I GP'd it - fine. Few turns later it is back, not converted but with a massive pressure for Christianity. Bought an Inquisitor thinking that would hold it back - nope, after a while I had to burn the Inquisitor to stop it reconverting. When I had enough faith I bought another and left it there for the rest of game - it never quite managed to reconvert. have to say it really annoyed me that Christianity kept popping back up every few turns after getting shut and with a much bigger pressure than my own religion. I had converted some but not all of nearby cities.
Now I'm not the most experienced player so I'm willing to bet there was a better way to deal with this - anybody?

 

[Browd]

Better would have been to use an Inquisitor as your first shot on Edinburgh after conquering it (purging its Holy City character/attributes), and then use the GP to spread your religion into 4 other nearby Christian cities.

Putting an inquisitor in Edinburgh after you've purged its Holy City status will prevent the Celts from manually reconverting the city with a missionary or Great Prophet (nothing will restore its Holy City status once purged), but does nothing to combat passive spread through city-to-city pressure. City to city pressure is combatted with counter-pressure (Religious Texts is great for this) and your manual spread of your religion with Great Prophets.