Using late religion and spreading that

[ntz]

Hi,

I have one question .. I don't understand how am I supposed to spread late religions like Christianity or Islam ... I am just playing for fun a 18 Civs Earth map and my goal is to discover certain late religion (Christianity or Islam) and just spread it worldwide .. Problem here is that after discovering that late religion and adopting that as a state religion almost every other nation starts to be pissed on me so I quickly come in `Annoyed' relations with most of the nations and then they eventually start waging a wars against me .. Especially funny moment is that even if I spent a countless hammers on building a missionaries and spread the religion to foreign cities then these other civs which are annoyed or cautious with me have greyed out my religion option (it's actually red-out in civ4 ) in diplomacy menu for converting saying `we don't like you enough' ..

So it's a circle ... And it seems to me that this is just broken logic and concept here because I would say that at least the diplomacy option `convert' should be available no matter on relations .. Sometimes it happens that other nations adopt my religion as a state religion randomly on their own but they love to switch state religion randomly later even few turns after adopting my religion and no matter that for instance I was able to spread my religion to ALL cities of that given nation.

Any thoughts or input is welcome and highly appreciated ...

thanks and regards, ~d

 

[sampsa]

Well, are you sure you are supposed to do that in the first place?

I think you can make it work by boosting relations with tech gifts or city gifts. You can use spies to force them to change religion despite poor relations (well unless I'm mistaken). The whole "strategy" doesn't have much to do with good play anyway.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I believe you can use Espionnage to try and force a conversion even if the option is not there on the diplomatic table?

I don't remember all the details, but an AI should favour the religion which is the most spread in its population. It will favour a self-founded religion (ie a religion it owns the Holy City for) over a foreign religion, though.
If there's still land available you could try gifting them cities with only your religion present?

But converting the whole world to a late religion peacefully is probably nigh on impossible... which I don't see as broken at all?
Why would a Buddhist civilization suddenly renounce its ways and become Christian just because you asked nicely?

Edit:
There is indeed something which could be considered "broken" with the game's religions: it's true that late religions do not play a role.
The first two religions will be the dominant religions in most games.
Sometimes the Monotheism religion can also become dominant.
In a few games, the next two might be adopted by their founder.
The last two never play a role as religions (they might be spread by someone going for a cultural victory, but that's it).

The option "Choose Religion" is there for those who'd like to play in a non-Buddhist or Hinduist world. But that's flavour-only (well, mostly).

So converting the whole world to a late religion might be a nice challenge, but it'll involve some
Score your attempts by the number of cities you've captured/razed, the fewer the better?

 

[AcaMetis]

The best trick to spreading religion is to gift AIs missionaries - not only does that let you build more missionaries faster, since they're no longer your units and won't count against your national limit of three missionaries (of a given religion), but AIs spreading religion to their own cities will do so without a chance to fail or without the restriction on spreading non-state religions if they're running Theocracy. Some AIs are also more likely to spread your religion themselves than others, I remember one game in particular I gifted Ramesses II a random missionary on a lark and the guy spread it to all of his cities in pretty short order. Guy must have been going for culture that game.

Beyond that there's nothing inherently broken about converting an already established religious world being particularly difficult to do, even more so peacefully. Per the game's manual it has seven religions because that was the most balanced number found during playtesting, and in situations where civs start off isolated it's much more likely that the first two, maybe three religions don't dominate the world most of the time. Although even than later religions can still play a role - anyone who's watched enough AI Survivor can attest to the fact that a civ conquering a random state religion city can lead to...questionable decision making down the line .

 

[ntz]

Interesting ...

The whole "strategy" doesn't have much to do with good play anyway.

well, it's a game, you play it to have a fun, to fantasise and imagine ...

@everybody

anyway, there are still some ugly concepts like for instance in general, why what the most that contributes to relations between countries are specifically religions and why the religions are in general so hostile to each other by a design .. And also as mentioned above I don't get the point of late religions because using them is going to only spark a problems ...

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Late religion holy cities are great for stealing technologies. The downside is you have to run it yourself as the state religion.

 

[AcaMetis]

Religious hostility is actually leader specific, which you can see in Civ Illustrated #1 (Know Your Enemy). As for the point of late religions, mainly cultural victories I would have to imagine (which doesn't require running them as a state religion), but it's honestly more map dependant. If all civs start on a pangaea and have contact with each other before anyone founds the Monotheism religion, yeah, Divine Right doesn't stand a chance. If you're on a map where all civs start isolated you might want to shoot for a late religion to enable some religion specific bonus like Pacifism, if the (relatively) early religions have already gone.

 

[Gumbolt]

I suspect by time those religions arrive it will be a bit late. Earth 18 some of the AI will always be 1-2 cities like Spain. Others may grow big. Spending 40 hammers on a missionary would take 40 turns with a shrine to get this back. If you have no prophets then this would be hard. The religion may spread naturally but you would think most cities would of had at least one religion pending when you get the religion. You might be able to get COL from the Oracle on Earth 18. Then maybe use that and a temple for a Great Prophet. Stonehenge too would help.

This will be more about trying to have some fun rather than trying to win the actual game. On Earth 18 I am usually spamming units to take down the world. If you start in Europe most of the European AI could be dead by 1ad.

 

[ntz]

btw I was thinking about this further .. diplomacy modifiers really need some re-balance ... the most affecting modifiers are those related to religion while for instance trading with worst enemy or attacking friendly nation is less ... anybody knows where these modifiers set ? is it this ?? https://modiki.civfanatics.com/index.php/Civ4DiplomacyInfos ?

 

[Thrasybulos]

No, they do not "need" rebalancing.

You, with your limited experience of the game, and as a reaction to your latest game, think they do.
Not the same thing.

And modifying them in the direction you're suggesting would be a very bad idea.

But whatever rocks your boat, as long as you're having fun.
Those modifiers are leader-specific, so you'll find them here: https://modiki.civfanatics.com/index.php/Civ4LeaderHeadInfos
For religion, the relevant values would be: iSameReligionAttitudeChange, iSameReligionAttitudeDivisor, iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit, iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange, iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor, and iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit.

 

[ntz]

No, they do not "need" rebalancing.

You, with your limited experience of the game ....

please be civil and respectful to other opinions ... this attitude is just not nice ... we're not talking about what the 2+2 is but about certain variable-based aspect of the game ... current mechanism is that in civ4 one of the biggest contributing factor that one nation starts war with other is a religion and this is not right .. you can easily test it yourself and this thread is about it ... if you will keep neutral without state religion until discovering late religion (like Islam) and adopt it, then basically everybody will turn against you ... this is in my opinion ridiculous ... I respect your opinion that it is OK, perhaps we're both from different cultural backgrounds ... I am only saying that as people are re-balancing games with mods me, if doing so, would re-balance the weight of these diplomacy modifiers because I've been playing some strategy games (actually strategy games are my the most favourite genre) and I consider in civ4 the influence of religions on relations between nations as literally broken ...

 

[jorissimo]

please be civil and respectful to other opinions ... this attitude is just not nice ... we're not talking about what the 2+2 is but about certain variable-based aspect of the game ... current mechanism is that in civ4 one of the biggest contributing factor that one nation starts war with other is a religion and this is not right .. you can easily test it yourself and this thread is about it ... if you will keep neutral without state religion until discovering late religion (like Islam) and adopt it, then basically everybody will turn against you ... this is in my opinion ridiculous ... I respect your opinion that it is OK, perhaps we're both from different cultural backgrounds ... I am only saying that as people are re-balancing games with mods me, if doing so, would re-balance the weight of these diplomacy modifiers because I've been playing some strategy games (actually strategy games are my the most favourite genre) and I consider in civ4 the influence of religions on relations between nations as literally broken ...

It's true that managing religion is an important part of managing diplomacy, which is in turn key for defense and winning the game. That's not necessarily broken, it just "is". It's not even ahistorical. Also, remember that having these diplo modifiers set up this way actually benefits the player rather than the AI. It keeps them from liking each other. There's nothing worse than discovering the main continent to be a happy clappy Buddhist love fest if you're not on it. Peaceful AI = teching AI.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I haven't objected to you expressing your opinion, but to you expressing it as a fact.
(And I might be a tad miffed at all those posts on gaming forums stating "needs": "This skill needs a rework", "This item needs a buff", "This boss needs a nerf", "This unit needs more power", "needs", "needs", "needs", ...).

And even if you'd been playing the game since it came out, your experience of the game would still be limited (to yourself, your playstyle, your expectations, as compared to the community's experience, etc.). That is a fact, not something to take umbrage with.

Since you mention being civil... I may not have given you the endorsement for your opinion you were apparently craving, but I have given you the information you were asking for. You hit that "Post" button as you were about to express your thanks, I suppose?
Happens all the time, don't sweat it.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think you can adopt religions early on at times.
Firstly if all your neighbours have that religion. Makes sense as it keeps everyone pleased.
Not every civ will give you a big penalty for having a different religion. If they have the holy city then sometimes you get a -2 point hit. Otherwise it may just be -1 diplomat point. You could infact take hits by not adopting a religion.

You can work on diplomacy by gifting resources, cities, techs, adopting favourite civics and joint wars. I don't often gift cities myself. You can beg at pleased for 10 turn peace. You can also bribe Ai into wars so they are not attacking you.

At some point you will have a big enough army that you are not bothered if the neighbour does not like you. If you have 70-80 cuirs running around an AI stack of 7-8 units barely matters.

The game is full of mechanics and i personally would not change how the religion works. Main reason for a religion for me is bonuses from some civics. Keeping neighbours pleased. Plus use for golden age to increase great people points from Pacifism. At times i spread religion to help stop the Ai winning by AP by sheer luck!

If i am surrounded by war crazy AI like Alex, Monty or Mongols then i will take a decision to not adopt a religion pending which one they have adopted. Each game is different. Sometimes I just don't want to take 2 turns anarchy to switch religions. When you get over 12 or so cities this becomes an issue. Which is why i often switch in golden ages.

 

[nmindos]

There's nothing worse than discovering the main continent to be a happy clappy Buddhist love fest if you're not on it.

^^this

 

[gavenkoa]

Not every civ will give you a big penalty for having a different religion. If they have the holy city then sometimes you get a -2 point hit. Otherwise it may just be -1 diplomat point. You could infact take hits by not adopting a religion.

I see iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit = -1 is same for all leaders.

Comparing with https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/ I've got to conclusion that a different parameter governs the limit: "iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange - 1", so the penalty varies from -1 to -3 (with additional -1 for having Holy City)

In my current game I see -3 & -4 under: "We are upset that you have fallen under the sway of a heathen religion." with BUG mod.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Should be iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange + iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit.

Starts at iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange (0 or -2), and after 5 turns (that's determined by iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor, but I don't know exactly how the value is used) decreases by one point until the total decrease is iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit.
Since by default, iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit = -1 for everyone, that last step is performed only once.

 

[ntz]

-3 or -4 is just pretty standard ... honestly I wonder what you're saying .. -1 for falling under the heathen religion is not usual .. perhaps in the begging but if I am not mistaken this number increases over the time

another funny thing in civ4's diplomacy is that it's absolutely not treated that my foes are attacking me from the territory of my friends and I cannot do anything with it ... and it doesn't have any impact .. the diplomaci in civ4 is just broken .. but yeah, it is what it is, no ill feelings, not blaming anybody ... I only wonder why it sounds here like if some people were advocating that it is kind of realistic or something ...

for instance I've been playing back in the day a lot Medieval 2: Total War .. this was my favourite one from the series .. If you remember the diplomacy system and mechanism from there and compare it with Civ4 you have to laugh at Civ4 ..

 

[gavenkoa]

-3 or -4 is just pretty standard ... honestly I wonder what you're saying .. -1 for falling under the heathen religion is not usual .. perhaps in the begging but if I am not mistaken this number increases over the time

iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor is -5. So every 5T it decreases to its limit, @Thrasybulos pointed it is iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange + iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit
It is so fast that almost always we see -3/-4.
iSameReligionAttitudeDivisor is 10, so +1 to relation every 10T. some leaders have iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit as high as 7, together with constant iSameReligionAttitudeChange = 1 it gives (7+1)*10 = 70T to reach max value - quite noticeable vs 20T for negative.

 

[gavenkoa]

I only wonder why it sounds here like if some people were advocating that it is kind of realistic or something ...

Yeah, we should only discuss if it is enjoyable or boring or irritating, etc. Historical or social/political accuracy - meh.

my foes are attacking me from the territory of my friends and I cannot do anything with it ...

Another annoying thing is religious decision to stop the war, so people disable Apostolic Palace.

In your case you could bribe friendly AI to close borders for the foe, but the price/requirements are disproportional, easier to pay the foe to stop a war.