Do you ever change religion to please another Civ?

[Hypatian]

I'm pretty sure there's no delay (considering how many times I've done it.) Also, new civics and religions take effect instantly, not on your next turn. This is pretty abusable, and I'm not sure it's a good thing. (The nice and not abusive part of it is you can see exactly what the upkeep costs for various civics will be like before deciding on one. I kind of like that part.)

As an example of abuse: Pyramids is *huge* with Spiritual, because you can use Representation to get +happy in your large cities, but any time you need to rush a unit out, you can queue it up, switch to Universal Sufferage, buy it to completion, and switch back to Representation... Which means a) no Medium upkeep cost, and b) you keep the +3 beaker bonus from Representation instead of getting the +1 hammer bonus from U.S.

I presume the same thing could be used with Slavery and Nationhoods' forcing powers. Perhaps also with Organized Religion to queue up missionaries. I've only personally used this trick with U.S., however.

(And this gives a potentially really good reason in a multi-player game to try to use the U.N. to lock down the civic-shifting possibilities for those pesky spiritual civs. Can't do that until very late, of course.)

[joncnunn]

In my current game, I ended up switching to No Religion when it turned out my immedate neighbors were the Mongols and Egyptains and they founded Budism & Hindiusm while I founded Judism and a 4th civ founded Christianity.

I'm making Liberism a high priority to switch to the Free Religion civic.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Hypatian
Two things:

First, if you're a culture that's immune to anarchy, there's never any reason not to switch religions... You can switch right back on the same turn, and still get the bonus for having switched at their request. *cough*

I'm not sure that a request for religion change works that way, as does a request to join in war, which seems tied to accepting the request or not. I think approval or disproval of religion may only be dependent on what religion you currently have. If you are a heathen religion, it counts negatively, while if you are of the same religion (brothers of the same faith), it counts positively. If you have free religion, it doesn't count in either column. I will try it out. In any case, a clear understanding of diplomacy rules will be required to use diplomacy to maximum effectiveness.

Originally posted by Hypatian
Second, it *is* possible to check what trade deals you'll be giving up when a request comes in. If you're playing at higher than 1024x768 resolution, you can click on the foreign advisor to check how things are going on. If you're playing at 1024x768 and that icon is covered, you can use F4 to bring up the foreign advisor, anyway.

I really like to do this when somebody requests something of me--it lets me get a read on what all of the leaders think of the person I'm talking to, and the person they're asking me to stiff.

Thanks, this will help immensely. In the present game, I noticed that when I cancelled my trade with English (Liz) upon Tokugawa's request, it showed up as a negative in Liz's view of Tokugawa, i.e., she knew that the trade cancellation was precipitated by him. I wonder if bribing a Civ to attack another works the same way?

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by joncnunn
In my current game, I ended up switching to No Religion when it turned out my immedate neighbors were the Mongols and Egyptains and they founded Budism & Hindiusm while I founded Judism and a 4th civ founded Christianity.

I'm making Liberism a high priority to switch to the Free Religion civic.

Yes, that's the approach I took. Liberalism allows free religion, and with all of the religions that I've acquired (with the help of foreign missionaries proselytizing my people), +1 per religion in a city, +10% research in all cities, is looking pretty good. Plus the benefits of not alienating certain key Civs.

Every game is different, and I really haven't played as a spiritual Civ yet, so I imagine if I founded a religion, I might not take switching so lightly. But the negatives show up as positives, so it makes quite a dramatic change in how the effected Civs regard you.

[Quillan]

There are two different modifiers at work here. The first is the religion itself, the "We care for our brothers and sisters of the faith" or "We are upset that you have fallen under the sway of a heathen religion" modifier. The other is the "You refused to convert to our religion" modifier. If you accept, you get the +1 modifier for converting at their request. If you're spiritual, you should be able to immediately convert back to your old religion after that exchange is completed. You'll still have the old "heathen religion" penalty, but your relations will be slightly better. The same would apply if they ask you to accept their favorite civic.

If you aren't spiritual, then you'll have to suffer through a turn of anarchy in the switch, plus wait 3-4 turns before suffering more anarchy to switch back if you don't turn them down. Turning them down gives a -1 penalty. I'd assume these penalties are cumulative as they ask more and more. I've built up -4 penalties for "You refused to stop trading with our worst enemy" on a number of occasions.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Shaka II
In the present game, I noticed that when I cancelled my trade with English (Liz) upon Tokugawa's request, it showed up as a negative in Liz's view of Tokugawa, i.e., she knew that the trade cancellation was precipitated by him. I wonder if bribing a Civ to attack another works the same way?

It does. You'll get a negative "You brought in an ally in a war against us" or something like that.

[Hypatian]

Originally posted by Shaka II
I'm not sure that a request for religion change works that way, as does a request to join in war, which seems tied to accepting the request or not. I think approval or disproval of religion may only be dependent on what religion you currently have. If you are a heathen religion, it counts negatively, while if you are of the same religion (brothers of the same faith), it counts positively. If you have free religion, it doesn't count in either column. I will try it out. In any case, a clear understanding of diplomacy rules will be required to use diplomacy to maximum effectiveness.

I've done this, so I'm certain that it works this way--at least a little bit. You get the "we support our brothers in the faith" bonus for sharing a religion, and the bonus adds up. (The longer you share the faith, the bigger the bonus gets, I think. Either that, or based on number of cities.)

But there's also a +1 bonus for caving in and changing religions at the AI's request. (This is the "you accepted our religion!" bonus, or something like that.) And, of course, a -1 penalty for refusing.

If you do the spiritual no-anarchy trick to say "yes", then immediately switch religions again, you do not get the "brothers of the faith" bonus, you do continue to get the "heathen religion" penalty, but you get the "accepted our religion" bonus and not the "refused to accept our religion" penalty.

Make sense?

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Hypatian


I've done this, so I'm certain that it works this way--at least a little bit. You get the "we support our brothers in the faith" bonus for sharing a religion, and the bonus adds up. (The longer you share the faith, the bigger the bonus gets, I think. Either that, or based on number of cities.)

But there's also a +1 bonus for caving in and changing religions at the AI's request. (This is the "you accepted our religion!" bonus, or something like that.) And, of course, a -1 penalty for refusing.

If you do the spiritual no-anarchy trick to say "yes", then immediately switch religions again, you do not get the "brothers of the faith" bonus, you do continue to get the "heathen religion" penalty, but you get the "accepted our religion" bonus and not the "refused to accept our religion" penalty.

Make sense?

Yes, I verified this after paying closer attention to the diplomacy screen last night. It all makes sense, except for the fact that spiritual types get to play this trick of yours. Devious.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Stuie

Originally posted by Shaka II
In the present game, I noticed that when I cancelled my trade with English (Liz) upon Tokugawa's request, it showed up as a negative in Liz's view of Tokugawa, i.e., she knew that the trade cancellation was precipitated by him. I wonder if bribing a Civ to attack another works the same way?

It does. You'll get a negative "You brought in an ally in a war against us" or something like that.

Yes, I tried this last night also, though I was surprised that Louis was only upset by -1 that I bribed Tokugawa to attack him, he's still in the pleased category.

My game is in the end game phase now, and I only have 60 turns to achieve domination. Not sure I'll make it, my only chance is to take on Louis with Tokagawa's help, who I'm in a defensive pact with. That also earned me a -2 in Louis' view, so he is down to cautious. If there was a permananet alliance then I'd have a much better chance, because the AI usually makes peace after 20 turns. But that 20 turns of help is all I really need, so I can do the rest and claim Louis' empire.

A few last minute tweaks with air and city defenses and I'm off to Paris. I noticed Louis cruising with a destroyer fleet and armies in transport, so I'm also covering my sea coast cities as well, with a strong naval fleet, and enough military to defend in case of a surprise attack from the rear. He's done that to me before in another game. Luckily both Tokugawa and I had golden ages in the last 10 turns, and I gifted him oil beforehand, so we are ready to roll.

The main thing I would have done differently would have been to wage oscillating war in the mid game to lessen war discontent, which wouldn't have jeopardized the timeline so much.

Yes, Tokugawa founded Hinduism, which is primarily why he was so interested in my switching religions. But I have so many religions in my empire, under free religion, my culture is quite impressive, lately Judaism is sky rocketing. I think the civic screen says free religion yields +1 happy face for each nonstate religion, but the religion screen shows it as +1 culture. Is that an error?