Why is my religion spreading half way accross the world?

[KristoferX]

Not that I'm complaining, but why so far away? I undrstand nearby cities, but I'm having my religion show up on other continents in places I haven't even explored yet. What is it that determines how quickly your religion spreads and more importantly, what locations it spreads to? How much do trade routes have to do with it?

 

[petey]

I think it spreads through trade routes. They don't all have to be your own, though.

If you have a trade route to a nearby civ and that civ has a trade route to a further away civ, then your religion can spread to the one near you via your trade route and then to the further one through their trade route.

 

[walkerjks]

Being connected does seem to be important. There have been many times in my games where finishing a road between myself and another civ has led to an immediate spread of one of my religions. Note that connection can also occur at rivers and by sea (coast or across oceans depending on tech), so getting sailing, for example, can increase the spread of your religion.

I don't know if an actual trade route was formed, but that would make sense (traders bring the religion with them effectively).

 

[Symphony D.]

There does appear to be a degree of randomness to it; I was playing a test game with three AIs on the same continent, and the far one, with whom I had no direct trade routes, randomly had one of their cities convert to Hinduism (my religion) when they had discovered and made Buddhism their official state religion. Really sort of weird. I hadn't talked with them or had units over there in centuries, if not millennia.