stop a ai prophet

[cjpc12]

Hello everyone,

I'm what I would call a casual civ player. Only started with IV. My question is there a way to stop a ai from spreading his/her religion? I know when I try to in another civ, I get yelled at saying stop.

 

[Febreze]

One of the best ways to do it seems to be surrounding your capital with military units. This will make it impossible for an AI prophet to approach your city and convert, war or no war. Theoretically they would just spread to your other cities anyway, but I've noticed that this usually stops the spreading behavior altogether as they seem to be programmed to make a beeline for your capital. I do think they should have some proactive diplomatic function of requesting a cessation in conversion activity, since as you said it's a one-way street. Plus there's a similar function for yelling at them for spying on you, after all.

 

[alpaca]

The Inquisitor unit has the passive ability of disabling foreign religion spread when parked in a city. It does not prevent the slow natural spread, though. And it costs maintenance.

Apart from that, you can only declare war and kill their prophet.

 

[petey]

I was playing a game yesterday where I sent a Prophet over to convert a nearby CS. The Civ the CS was allied with declared war on me and the CS then stole my prophet.

I was somewhat miffed, but then that Civ was nowhere near me and so I sent troops over to the CS and, since it had put its worker in the city, the prophet it stole was being protected by one of it's units, so I killed it and took my prophet back. Then, when peace was declared, I went and converted the city.

So, while it didn't work out for the guy in the end, it did show a potential strategy and I suppose that you can just declare war, steal the prophet and then go and build a Holy Site or something.

Edit: Oh wait, alpaca just said that.

 

[binhthuy71]

The Inquisitor unit has the passive ability of disabling foreign religion spread when parked in a city. It does not prevent the slow natural spread, though. And it costs maintenance.

Apart from that, you can only declare war and kill their prophet.

There's also the option of taking the Messiah belief (Great Prophets 25% cheaper and 25% more powerful) and then using one or two Prophets to convert all of the offender's cities within a few turns. I managed that in a recent game and all I got was a minor diplo hit, "Your religious zeal is disturbing."

 

[Ookamikun]

I find it really odd that there is no "Stop spreading your religion" option in the diplo window.

 

[binhthuy71]

I find it really odd that there is no "Stop spreading your religion" option in the diplo window.

I'm not certain that it would do any more good than the "Stop spying on us," option. Repeated attempts at conversion, like repeated spying, like attacking a CS whom you've pledged to protect are not, as far as I know, legitimate causes for war.

The game seems to be very inconsistent about war. On the one hand, the only way to effectively stop the behaviors I mentioned above is to declare war. On the other hand, if you do so then you get the warmonger tag. It can be frustrating.

 

[Halcyan2]

Lots of players seem to complain about the AI's converting their cities.

If they ever add an option to ask AI's to *not* send missionaries and Holy Prophets, maybe they should also add an option that *invites* AI's to convert you:

1. Sometimes you might not found a religion, so you can welcome an AI's religion and encourage them to convert you

2. Even if you found your own religion, sometimes it can be useful to be converted in order to buy the religious buildings (Cathedral/Mosque/Pagoda/Monastery) that you didn't choose. In some cases, I'd happily convert (temporarily) to get those buildings and then switch back.

I was recently playing a game where I was initially annoyed that the AI converted my city (usually AI's ignore me with religion). But then I realized that it was a good thing because I had plenty of faith (to convert back) and that the AI's religion simply meant that I could access Cathedrals....

 

[binhthuy71]

1. Sometimes you might not found a religion, so you can welcome an AI's religion and encourage them to convert you

In my last game I decided not to found a religion, just to see what would happen. As expected, one of my neighbors sent in a missionary and converted my capitol. Fair enough. A few turns later, another neighbor sent in a prophet and converted my capitol to his religion. Then the first neighbor sent in another missionary whose efforts resulted in my capitol having no majority religion. The back and forth went on for the balance of the game with the result that my capitol never again had a majority religion.

 

[cjpc12]

Or make then the same as any unit. Open borders. Most of the time its from a ai that I never interact with

 

[Kwami]

Or make then the same as any unit. Open borders. Most of the time its from a ai that I never interact with

Religion often tries to spread itself where it's not welcome. That's probably why prophets and missionaries can go into non-friendly territory. Missionaries lose strength when the do so, but prophets don't. Maybe prophets should?

Anyway, I find that sitting an inquisitor in the capital or surrounding it with military units solves the problem. The first will cost you a bit (the faith to buy the inquisitor plus the gold upkeep cost every turn), but it's simpler and doesn't require your military to stay near the capital.

Either way, the AI usually gives up if it can't convert your capital. It might leaves its prophet near your territory for the entire game if it doesn't have another target in mind, but he'll never do anything with it until you lose your inquisitor or leave a hole in your military defenses.

 

[isnorden]

Unless I'm running "mod-tester" games that begin too late for religion, I protect mine in two steps:

1. Before enhancement: surround the major cities with enough combat units to discourage missionaries and prophets.
2. After enhancement: Set automatic Faith purchases to Inquisitor, and keep at least one in every town. The military backup is still good in case whoever sent the missionary declares war on you...but Inquisitors are the first line of defense in a "conversion contest." (I once had a border town convert back and forth between its original religion and that of a neighboring empire...four times. Sending Inquisitors over became routine in that one town!)

 

[FeiLing]

They should make Inquisitors like spies (no actual unit to move on the map). I need my cities as a safe haven for saved up Great People.
Also the unit cost maintenance for a bunch of inquisitors is just stupid as well. You better just let your city convert and reconvert it then again by a great prophet.
While doing this, they should also add a functionality to the inquisitors, that makes spreading foreign religions to the city they are stationed via pressure from nearby cities slower.