Why are great prophets the only GP that have the same faith cost counter?

[Question]

If you generate 10 great artists, it still cost the same faith to buy the first GA manually.

Great prophets on the other hand, have faith costs that scale based on how many you auto-generate, making them the most expensive GP. Seems kind of unfair?

 

[Browd]

Well, Great Prophets are the only Great Persons that can ONLY be bought with faith. Every other Great Person can be generated either by the relevant Great Person Points (accumulated XP, in the case of Great Generals and Great Admirals) OR bought with faith (once you unlock that capability)--and, as you note, their GPP counters and faith counters are not linked.

Since Great Prophets only have a faith counter, you really can't compare GPrs to other Great Persons, but let's do it anyway.

The faith cost of Great Prophets (whether auto-generated or bought once you hit Industrial) starts at the 200-faith threshold, and then escalates by 100 faith per GPr generated -- 200, 300 (200+100), 500 (300+200), 800 (500+300). In my experience, the 800-faith GPr is usually the last one you might auto-generate before entering the Industrial Era. The costs of subsequent GPrs then continue on the same scale -- 1200 (800+400), 1700 (1200+500), 2300 (1700+600), etc. So, if you want to generate 6 Great Prophets, you're looking at an aggregate of about 8000 faith (ignoring the excess faith lost from the random pre-Industrial spawn mechanic).

In comparison, faith buying 3 Great Artists and 3 Great Scientists would also cost you 8000 faith -- 2 x 4000 faith (1000 + 1500 (1000+500) + 2500 (1500+1000)).

If you wanted to buy 6 of the same type of GP, the faith cost would be 23,500 faith -- 1000 + 1500 (1000+500) + 2500 (1500+1000) + 4000 (2500+1500) + 6000 (4000+2000) + 8500 (6000+2500).

Looks like Great Prophets are a bargain in comparison.

 

[Question]

But the thing is you can generate far more great artists than great prophets in total, the free ones + buying them manually.

 

[General Tso]

The current system in perfect in my humble opinion. You want Great Prophets to be available early in the game and then become more difficult to obtain later on. It works well with game-play plus it just feels right historically.

 

[Browd]

But the thing is you can generate far more great artists than great prophets in total, the free ones + buying them manually.

And the problem with that is...? Honestly, I'm not clear about what you think should happen.

if you just want to generate more Great Prophets with the same amount of faith generation, just create a mod to change the faith costs of Great Prophets. The two relevant variables are in gameinfo.xml:

<Row Name="RELIGION_MIN_FAITH_FIRST_PROPHET">
<Value>200</Value>
</Row>

-<Row Name="RELIGION_FAITH_DELTA_NEXT_PROPHET">
<Value>100</Value>
</Row>

Change 200 to 100 (or whatever) and change 100 to 25. You will be swimming in Great Prophets (mostly generated by the AI civs, who will smother you with Great Prophets).

Or, if you just don't think it's right that you can use relatively modest amounts of faith to buy other Great Persons (e.g., your observation that you can buy more Great Artists than Great Prophets), just mod the following lines (also in gameinfo.xml) to increase both the initial 1000 faith threshold and the 500-per-GP rate of increase:

<Row Name="RELIGION_MIN_FAITH_FIRST_GREAT_PERSON">
<Value>1000</Value>
</Row>

<Row Name="RELIGION_FAITH_DELTA_NEXT_GREAT_PERSON">
<Value>500</Value>
</Row>

Changing 1000 to 2500 and 500 to 2000 will pretty much shut down faith-buying other Great Persons, allowing you to reserve more faith to buy Great Prophets.

 

[Redaxe]

The current system in perfect in my humble opinion. You want Great Prophets to be available early in the game and then become more difficult to obtain later on. It works well with game-play plus it just feels right historically.

yeah if you play a wide game with lots of desert and desert folklore the amount of faith you can generate is crazy. That can turn into a lot of Great Prophets.
But generally I prefer not to get too many Great Prophets too early. It can be better to buy missionaries earlier until the Renaissance era because Missionaries will become 50% more expensive after the Medieval era and then you can start buying Great Prophets who are still quite cheap. But this is situational - depending on what you want your religion to do. If you want lots of Holy Sites for tourism etc, then get your Great Prophets out early and start working the tiles for extra faith.

On a side note if you want super cheap Great Prophets very early here is what you can do. Play Byzantium, for the bonus belief pick Messiah. That means that your second Prophet will appear with only 225 faith I think! (rather than 300).
That means you can enhance super early and the flow on benefit from Messiah starts much earlier, this can have powerful snowballing effects for religion.

 

[Question]

Its just annoying that i can generate a dozen great artists or whatever, hit industrial age, then buy them with faith, but i cant do that with great prophets because their faith cost is affected by the auto-generated prophets in the previous eras.

It makes the holy sites far too expensive to use since you need the prophets to convert enemy cities.

 

[Browd]

Why do you need Great Prophets to convert enemy cities? That's only relevant if you take a founder belief that only pays benefits if you convert and keep foreign cities following your religion.

From Prince/King upwards, you shouldn't think of religion as providing permanent "first-mover" advantages. On a standard map, there will be 4 other civs with religions, and even if they founded their religion later than you, they will catch up. Many a time, I see the AI spreading its religion only to foreign cities with mid- and late-game GPs, never converting its own cities or enhancing their religion, because they have a founder belief that only provides benefits for foreign cities/followers (which, by the way, is a perfectly rational thing for the AI, or anyone else founding their religion late, to do).

If you want to pursue a Holy Site strategy, consider founder beliefs that don't depend on foreign cities permanently following your religion, like follower-based beliefs (tithe, world church) or a belief that pays off only on initial spread (initiation rites) or provides a benefit that is mostly beneficial in the mid-game (papal primacy). After your initial spread with missionaries, buy a few inquisitors for your own cities, and then settle all of your Great Prophets, including the GP from the Piety finisher (which is truly free). You want to finish Piety with this strategy, since that is when Holy Sites provide the +3 culture, on top of the +3 gold from Theocracy.

 

[Redaxe]

Its just annoying that i can generate a dozen great artists or whatever, hit industrial age, then buy them with faith, but i cant do that with great prophets because their faith cost is affected by the auto-generated prophets in the previous eras.

It makes the holy sites far too expensive to use since you need the prophets to convert enemy cities.

A Holy Site strategy is really intended for late game tourism from a Cultural Victory and/or using that faith to buy late game Great People (To the Glory of God) or for generating extra faith to support Sacred Sites.
Otherwise it's just a means to generate some extra faith to help establish a religion... Ideally to do a Holy Site strategy properly you need a good faith generating pantheon like Desert Folklore.

What victory strategy are you pursuing? Maybe if you provide some more information we can help you optimise your strategy

Your best bet I think is to build Borobudur or Great Mosque for the missionary bonus. Focus on getting 2 or 3 missionaries early while they are cheap at 160 faith each and use them to convert nearby cities. Missionaries go up in price as you enter later era's so they are best used early unless you plan on taking Evangelism and Holy Order/Missionary Zeal in which case they remain very useful into the later game.

You also have to decide on and prioritise what you spend your faith on for beliefs. If you take religious buildings remember it will take 80-100 turns for a Pagoda to return it's yield on faith (depending if you are going Piety). So if you want lots of faith for Great Prophets or Holy Warriors etc then religious buildings can end up being a liability particuarly if you are planting late game cities where the cost of a religious building can be 400 faith...

So for a Holy Site strategy it is better to pick beliefs like Religious Centre, Choral Music and Religious Community.
You know you can also spread your religion really well using Trade routes. Having the Grand Temple in the Capital doubles the religious pressure from a trade route so this Wonder should be a priority. The Grand Temple is also the best source of faith in the game.
Also remember that the passive spread for a religion is 10 tiles so keep that in mind when you are placing cities, if they are too far apart you will generate less pressure overall...

 

[Question]

I typically go for cultural or diplomatic victories as they are the easiest to get and you get them "along the way". Social policies and CS allies are very helpful regardless of what victory you go for, whereas you have to go out of your way to actually build the science parts or take all capitals.

I find the faith buildings to be pretty lackluster, but then again i dont usually have enough cities to spam pagodas. It might just be that they are better when you go wide.

From what ive seen whoever founds religion first will dominate their continent religion wise. I usually see something like one religion having 25+ cities and the remaining religions on that continent having a handful each, if even that much. I guess it doesnt help that the AI doesnt seem to know how to buy inquisitors and just spams missionaries on its own cities...

When converting enemy cities i typically send at least 3 great prophets to convert the cities of a non-religion civ. That way you dont get the diplomatic penalty for conversion. You do get a diplomatic bonus for sharing the same religion and i find that the beliefs based on more cities/followers are the most helpful. Peace loving for example, can get you a ton of happiness that would otherwise be impossible to get. 30+ happiness is pretty significant.

I found that attempting to spread religions via trade routes was largely a waste of time unless you were arabia. First of all, you lose a ton of gold by using non-optimal trade routes to spread faith. Even with the grand temple bonus, it takes far too many turns to convert a city via religious pressure alone. Ive seen the AI permanently stall conversion even with 200+ religious pressure just by building the occasional missionary.

 

[Uzael36]

A better question may be, "how can I improve my game within the rules?" Rather than worrying why the rules are what they are, worry about how to utilize the game mechanics to win.

 

[tetley]

In general use missionaries to convert pre-religion cities; not GPs. GPs are strong at converting cities of other religions, and later in the game.

 

[Question]

The problem with that is unless you get a religion relatively early, you will find that most of the cities on your continent have been converted and your missionaries will do basically nothing at that point. Unless you enhance them.

Its especially annoying when the AI gets lucky and gets faith goodyhuts or bumps into faith CS and can found a pantheon/religion much earlier than you can using just shrines. Pantheon on turn 7 from a civ that has no early faith generation options (not celts, not ethiopia, etc) before anyone can even research pottery for example.

 

[beetle]

The problem with that is unless you get a religion relatively early, you will find that most of the cities on your continent have been converted...

Most games, I really have not found a compelling need for an early religion. Even having all your cities converted is recoverable. Pre-Industrial (while GPr has an RNG aspect), you should be okay. After that, things are trickier (because GPr are harder to get). Keep in mind that any GPr you generate will be of your religion (even if the city where he shows up has been converted). 1 GPr == 4 core cities converted, and religious pressure alone should be enough to keep those converted for the rest of the game, even as the missionary spam continues. So you should be good until the AI starts sending GPr your way, and by then you should have an inquisitor on station. If you have gone wide, wait until you have two GPr, then start reclaiming your cities. You should have 8 cities in three turns; it's unassailable by missionaries!

Instead of waiting, the temptation is to buy and burn your own missionaries on your own cities, as quick as you can. In the face of AI missionary spam, that's a losing proposition. Once you have the GPr (or two) on hand, you probably can afford to wait and faith-buy any buildings available with the AI's faith. Again, there is no particular hurry to reclaiming your cities. In the meantime, all you are really missing out on is your founder benefit, and those are pretty weak anyway!

...and your missionaries will do basically nothing at that point.

Agree, the turn window where missionaries are effective is very limited. I rarely build more than one, and often none.

Its especially annoying when the AI gets lucky and gets faith goodyhuts or bumps into faith CS and can found a pantheon/religion much earlier than you can using just shrines. Pantheon on turn 7 from a civ that has no early faith generation options (not celts, not ethiopia, etc) before anyone can even research pottery for example.

Annoying, yes. But none of that should be enough to prevent you from founding. None of that should be enough to prevent you from being able to have your religion in your home territory.

 

[Trackmaster]

I guess that one thing to keep in mind is that you have a lot more control over when a GP is generated, and the other Great Persons can often pop up at inconvenient times (with the exception of the merchants, scientists, and engineers, but its inconvenient that generating one makes it harder to generate the others). For the artists/musicians/writers, you may not have the slot available, and their alternative uses are usually pretty lame, the GG usually comes in the middle of a battle when it would be hard to get him there, the Admiral in general isn't that useful. And, even to buy one with faith, you have to have the policy unlocked to do it, so even being able to buy one is a benefit in itself.

I'd suggest that you rethink using GP's extensively for converting. After I create and enhance your religion, I usually like to invest in 2-3 holy sites, and after that, GP's get pretty expensive. For the most part, it's not even that important to spread your religion around the world. If you use interfaith dialogue, all that you really need to do is use your missionaries and click spread religion. The only reason to have everybody follow your religion is for the tithes, and they aren't extremely high. Or maybe the influence. But that comes at extremely large diplo hits. Either way, it's better to spread your religion through pressure rather than GP's.

 

[beetle]

Ha, I agree with you about the other GP popping up at inconvenient times! There is a school of thought that those pops should absolutely not be a surprise, but that's not something I have mastered.

Investing in holy sites is popular, but I always seem to have more pressing uses for GPr. I agree that it's no important to spread your religion around the world. But I am very partial to the CS conversion requests. Tithe works on fractional followers, so no need to convert cities on that account. The influence for shared religion is weak, and not worth a diplo hit IMHO. Sometimes I like to convert a civ that has not founded. If that civ is on their own continent, I might be able to convert all there cities with one GPr. I also agree that spreading through pressure rather than GPr is better.

 

[Browd]

For those who find Great Persons popping at surprising times, you should try to get in the habit of regularly checking the Great Person tab of the menu at the top left of the screen (which normally shows what tech you are researching). That tab shows you how many turns to the next GP of each type, on a city-by-city basis. By actively managing what specialist slots you are working in particular cities, you should be better able to manage which GPs spawn, and when they spawn.

 

[Primacide]

The problem with that is unless you get a religion relatively early, you will find that most of the cities on your continent have been converted and your missionaries will do basically nothing at that point. Unless you enhance them.

Its especially annoying when the AI gets lucky and gets faith goodyhuts or bumps into faith CS and can found a pantheon/religion much earlier than you can using just shrines. Pantheon on turn 7 from a civ that has no early faith generation options (not celts, not ethiopia, etc) before anyone can even research pottery for example.

I think this illustrates something not mentioned here: that there are several points in the game where you have to make a choice about what part religion will play in your victory.

1) "I didn't found a religion." Easy enough, just hoard your faith until late game and let the AIs fight over your cities. Pick up any faith buildings that come your way.

2) "I founded a religion late." Try to keep your faith in your core cities. Note who sends missionaries to your cities - the AI views this as hostile behavior, so regardless of that DoF, if a civ is trying to convert you, they are at least willing to fight. In this situation, where I founded late, and most of the continent follows another faith, I keep my religion in orbit until late game. If I need a late game prophet rush for tithe or happiness, it's still an option.

3) "I founded a religion early and the tenants I picked are just awesome." In this scenario, you push and push your religion out. However, you will sacrifice other aspects of the game. You can't build a temple and a bank at the same time, so what's it going to be? If I go hard for my religion, I first convert CS, then non-religious AI. You should let your own cities automatically convert and use the early missionaries to go for unconverted CS or AI cities. I typically do not try to convert another civ who has founded a religion unless they spam me and won't agree to quit. In this case, and it will happen every time, be prepared to go to war. (FYI: I have found adwcta's 'guide to playing small' invaluable in terms of early faith strategy. I do not copy the play style, but the tips on spreading your religion are spot-on.)

The point is, I feel that religion is up in the air until the medieval/renn era. When you get a sense of what the religious picture is, you can decide to continue trying to spread or hunker down and save your faith for later. Bottom line: don't be afraid to abstain from the early faith game if you don't feel like you can dominate. Let the AI bash it's head against itself until the time looks good much later in the game. People rarely report that religion was a critical factor in a victory. It can help, to be sure, but not worth sacrificing diplomatic relations in a battle you won't win.

 

[beetle]

Just to clarify, point (1) is hoard your faith until late game to buy GP. Pick-up any faith buildings that come your way in the meantime. (But without founding, what else can you do but hoard your faith? Spend faith on missionaries from someone else's religion?)

I think point (2) needs to be divided into &#8220;I founded late&#8221; and (2A) my tenants are awesome, and (2B) my tenants are mediocre, and a neighbor has better ones. Even founding late, I usually am pleased by my tenants. Even when my neighbor has better tenants (buildings, including Jesuit Education, or Holy Warriors), I still want my religion in my cities at the end game. So I would work these two situations very differently.

 

[Redaxe]

Much of your success in spreading religion will depend on one thing, do your nearby neighbors have a religion?

I played a Diety game as Byzantines on continents. Now none of the other 3 civs on my continent founded a religion. So with Tithe and World Church it was amazing. I had so much culture I could easily fill out 2 social policy trees before the renaissance & rationalism. Now if I had another religion to compete with on Diety then World Church would have sucked.