Unholying holy cities

[luukdeman111]

Hey folks!

In my latest G&K game i was trying to spread my religion around a little bit and at some point I wanted to convert a holy city for a different religion to my religion with missionarys. As i kinda expected it wasn't very effective because of the religious pressure the holy city produces. However, when i tried the same thing with a GP it not only converted the city to my religion. It removed the other religion from the city and therefore the holy city was gone.

It was only later i found out it was normal for GP's to replace the current religion but I didn't expect it to work for holy cities too because, and that is the most interesting part, it sets the religious pressure for that religion in all other cities surrounding it to zero.

So eventhough it is a fun mechanic isn't it a bit OP to be able to comepletely remove religions from the game with just one GP??

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Nope. Because unless you convert ALL of cities immediately, there's nothing stoping you from buying an inquisitor and squashing the rival religino. Inquisitors have no pressure, meaning they remove 100% of rival religion. If that makes sense.

Besides, the religion will eventually come back anyway, it's never gone 100%, unless you conquer the founder of the religion, which I believe eliminated the existance of the religion to some extent, I have yet to see Vienna become confucianism again in my last game.. so I dunno.

 

[Punchline]

In the culture game I just finished, I decided to try and do just that - eliminate a religion from the game. What I found was that even after religion bombing every city within two dozen tiles of a founding city, and using a GP to force the founding city to switch to my religion, that a small amount of pressure for the 'eliminated' religion started to build up in the converted city over the following dozen turns or so.

So, over time, I have to assume the pressure would build back up, and slowly convert back to its founding religion. Maybe. I didn't wait that long, since I was close to victory and getting bored . I didn't try conquering the city either, which might do it?

It would still take a very long time, though - so even if you can't completely wipe a religion off the earth, you could certainly effectively destroy it.

 

[BobDole]

Doing what you said doesn't completely remove a religion from the game. That person can go and buy a Great Prophet and just respread it (which is what I did when my religion was all but wiped out by a Prophet). I also believe Holy Cities will slowly convert people back as well, although that wasn't working too well in my case.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I've tried this... the AI just buys a GP or missionary/inquisitor and restores their religion. Even without followers, they still accumulate faith. The only way to remove the religion is to conquer the Civ and purge it from your cities, and even then I'm betting the Holy City will still exert pressure just for being the Holy City.

 

[luukdeman111]

yeah i found that out too... 2 turns later the city had ten followers of their old religion again and the city tooltip stated it is a holy city again. But it's pretty strange that for those two turns it wasn't the holy city anymore...

 

[Villager720]

The only way Ive found to "De-Holy" a holy city is to conquer it and nail it with an Inquisitor. Then make sure there are no other hold out cities to spread it back. Even if it does survive somewhere else, the Holy City remains just a normal city now. All that said, I don't know what happens if they reclaim their capital/holy city. Using this method, Ive completely removed every religion but my own from the world. Without hitting a holy city with an inquisitor, the faith always seems to reemerge later on.

So to recap: Hit surrounding cities with a GP, hit the captured holy city with an Inquisitor.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I've noticed that when a Civilization is fully annhilated, their religion disappears from the Religion Overview (it still remains in cities though).

 

[Adjuvant]

I just played a game revisiting "bollywood". Viking's christian great prophet ran straight at my capitol from water and with the difficulty level I felt I was in no position to dow him and kill it. I surrounded my capitol with what I had (workers crossbows pikemen) to try to stop him converting, but he did it from the sea (coastal city, didn't know they could do it from the water, now I do). So he converted my capitol to christianity and the tooltip no longer said "holy city for sikhism".

I absolutely couldn't allow this to happen to my other 2 cities and I dow'd, capturing the great prophet and later realized two things. (A) I made a missionary in another city and converted my capitol back. The tooltip again read, "holy city of sikhism". Nothing substantial was lost except my faith points building the missionary. (B) I couldn't use the christian great prophet to even make a holy site. I understand the unit remaining "christian", but I had absolutely no other use for having "captured" over "destroyed" it at all.

Is this by design? What's the point of capturing holy units then? It's not like later I can "gain control" of his founder bonuses. I shrugged and assassinated it.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I agree, there's absolutely no use in capturing Great Prophets or Missionaries (or INquistiors) since they are always loyal to their religion, so that makes them VERY useless.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I just played a game revisiting "bollywood". Viking's christian great prophet ran straight at my capitol from water and with the difficulty level I felt I was in no position to dow him and kill it. I surrounded my capitol with what I had (workers crossbows pikemen) to try to stop him converting, but he did it from the sea (coastal city, didn't know they could do it from the water, now I do). So he converted my capitol to christianity and the tooltip no longer said "holy city for sikhism".

I absolutely couldn't allow this to happen to my other 2 cities and I dow'd, capturing the great prophet and later realized two things. (A) I made a missionary in another city and converted my capitol back. The tooltip again read, "holy city of sikhism". Nothing substantial was lost except my faith points building the missionary. (B) I couldn't use the christian great prophet to even make a holy site. I understand the unit remaining "christian", but I had absolutely no other use for having "captured" over "destroyed" it at all.

Is this by design? What's the point of capturing holy units then? It's not like later I can "gain control" of his founder bonuses. I shrugged and assassinated it.

Once a prophet uses "spread religion", it may only do that. This is to prevent people from using it 3 times and then enhancing a religion or founding a holy site. Apparently, this carries over to when he's captured. All he's good for is spreading religion, and he may only spread HIS religion. He's useless to you. Had u captured him before he spread the religion, you could concievably have used him in other ways.

 

[Morningcalm]

In one game I played my Holy City converted to another religion, and when I made an inquisitor in that city, I used him in that city, and he stomped out my native, non-dominant religion.

What gives?!

 

[Unearthly]

In one game I played my Holy City converted to another religion, and when I made an inquisitor in that city, I used him in that city, and he stomped out my native, non-dominant religion.

What gives?!

Inquisitors and missionaries are members of the current dominant religion, whether it is a holy city or not. If you have no other cities of your religion, you need to convert it back using a great prophet (which is always your religion).

 

[Bad Wolf]

there's absolutely no use in capturing Great Prophets

You can use them to build holy sites if they haven't spread religion yet.

 

[Thibaulthc]

-one very useful thing: Inquisitor have a second role: they can DEFEND a city from being converted!
just place him in a city and let it sleep there, enemy GP and missionaries won't be able to spread their religion in your city.

-another tip: faith prices climb up when you reach a new era; so if you have 198 faith and are about to reach medieval era next turn, be aware that this next turn you missionary/cathedral/inquisitor will cost you 300 instead of 200 faith

-GP prizes is indepedent of the era; first one is 200, then 500, 800, 1500, 2400,...

-religious units are and will stay of the dominant religion in the city they have been created in; so if you capture a missionary, he still will spread enemy's religion and a captured inquisitor will erase YOUR religion; so just kill the

-i think each religion can have up to 6 beliefs max; even if a religion get annihilated (erasing its founder) you cannot add more beliefs to your religion after;

-if you capture an enemy Holy City...nothing happens
it would be so nice if you could get al the advantages of their beliefs once you get the HC... but no, nothing, nada...that's sad

 

[Lyoncet]

-one very useful thing: Inquisitor have a second role: they can DEFEND a city from being converted!
just place him in a city and let it sleep there, enemy GP and missionaries won't be able to spread their religion in your city.

Wow, are you serious??? I feel like that feature should be more prominent since I don't think I've heard a thing about it.

 

[anandus]

Check civilopedia

 

[JamesCivFan]

Wow, are you serious??? I feel like that feature should be more prominent since I don't think I've heard a thing about it.

Me neither! Can anyone else confirm?

 

[Thibaulthc]

from Civilopedia:

Can be purchased with Faith in any city with a majority Religion that has been enhanced. They can remove other religions from your cities (expending the Inquisitor) or be placed inside a city to protect it from Missionaries and Prophets trying to spread other religions into that city.

yeah; I first missed it too

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

:|.. this is evil... seriously xD.

Why did we not know that until now?