The Value of Missionaries

[Blake]

Is it worth building missionaries purely for the +1 gold in your shrine?

Yes. Yes it is.

The simplest comparison is with a Courthouse, which has no side-effects and liberates some coins, much as shrine give you some coins. (once markets come into play it's not a perfect comparison, but it's better than comparing coins and commerce)

So lets see how many missionaries we can get for the price of a courthouse:

Quick: 80 hammers / 26 hammers = 3.07
Normal: 120 hammers / 40 hammers = 3
Epic: 180 hammers / 50 hammers = 3.6
Marathon: 360 hammers / 80 hammers = 4.5

So missionaries are equal to building a courthouse in a city with 6 upkeep (standard) to 9 upkeep (marathon). Of course for Organized leaders the courthouses are relatively better, although on Marathon you're still better off pumping missionaries than building a courthouse in a city with 4 upkeep.

Missionaries have the additional benefit of the income being incremental, you invest a relatively small amount of hammers then start getting a return on that investment (after a little movement time), in contrast with the expensive buildings that must be fully completed before they start giving a return.

Of course gaining income from missionaries depends on there being free cities to convert. Being forced to convert cities which already have a religion reduces the expected income somewhat. As the game progresses, higher multipliers in the shrine city reduces the time for a missionary to pay for itself, which should be enough to encourage further missionary spam.

Religion spread has the additional externalities of the happiness bonuses (state and temple), this is a good thing for your cities, and may be a bad thing when spreading to your neighbors, however your neighbors WILL get a religion of some kind in all their cities, so you may as well be the one profiting... and there is the diplomatic benefit, but that alone is worth spreading religion for.

In conclusion: Missionaries are outrageously good value on Marathon and should be spammed as long as there are places to put them; it's hard to find a better investment. On other game speeds they are moderately good value, definitely worth building.

[alva]

Something you don't really mention (and don't take into account?) is that missions can fail.


EDIT: Forgot "don't"

[Blake]

Missionaries can only fail when spreading to a city which already has a religion. From experience this seems to be about a 25% chance in a city with 1 religion, altough runs of bad luck should be accounted for. In short, when your missionaries have a chance of failing only build them if you can afford to lose them (like, you don't really have anytihng better to build).

I find that in normal games it's possible to build at least a half dozen missionaries before running out of religionless cities, in some cases I can build dozens of them and the "max of 3 missionaries at a time" is the limiting factor - the limit of 3 isn't much of a problem if you have multiple religions.
One thing to note about the limit - make sure to train the primary religion (ie state religion) missionaries from high hammer cities, you don't want the limit getting tied up with missionaries that are being trained. Use poorer cities to train secondary religion missionaries.

[alva]

I usually go the other way, I'll (start by) spread religion to cities that already have a religion, hoping that the ones that don't get one for free.
Not sure if that's the best way though.

From experience this seems to be about a 25% chance in a city with 1 religion,

It's somewhere in teh XML files btw.

[joncnunn]

I'm with Alva; I won't send a missonary to a no religion town until I send it to 1 religion towns.

[Hauptman]

I send them to the closest city he can hit that doesnt already have 3 religions... Once they have 3 they fail far too often to try too hard on them.


I spam missionaries like a madman when i have a founded religion... My eye is on that wallstreet building.

[Gueron]

Originally posted by Blake
Missionaries can only fail when spreading to a city which already has a religion.

I'm not sure about the failure when spreading to a city that has a religion, but I have noticed that the chance of a religion spreading to a new city is almost directly proportional to the last time a religion has spread to that city.

I've never been successful in spreading a religion (via missionary) to the same city in the same turn, and have failed more often than not when I have spread a different religion to that city in the last few turns.

On a positive (sort of ) note, though, I have been successful more often than not by a strategy I call the Martyr Method, which is where I send two missionaries to a city and if one fails to establish a religion, I follow up immediately or during the next turn with the second missionary. Sort of sacrificing the first to allow the second to succeed.

G.

edit: Correct grammatical error.

[Ray Radlein]

Originally posted by Gueron
I've never been successful in spreading a religion (via missionary) to the same city in the same turn, and have failed more often than not when I have spread a different religion to that city in the last few turns.

It could have something to do with the game's difficulty settings (and even the length setting); just last night I loaded a transport up with four different missionaries and sent it to a newish colony of mine that already had two religions. Miraculously, all four missionaries succeeded as soon as they unloaded; but I'm also playing mainly for personal style points on a fairly low difficulty setting.

The other thing I've noticed is that missionaries seem much more likely to succeed in Marathon games than in Quick ones. I'm not sure I've ever had a second religion fail to spread in a Marathon game, whereas it has happened in Quick ones; heck, in Marathon games, I tend to consider third religions to be almost automatic, whereas in Quick games they're a real crapshoot (last night's game was a Marathon game, for instance).

[Civrocx]

Is it worth it yes.

I think the question is more like, when does it become worth it .

I let the shrine do the work ,till i get to the point where i really dont have anything more worthwhile to build.

I wait now till i see what religions are founded if any
by my neighbors before i even accept a religion.

Theres been lots of games the shrine will spread religion to my neighbors and a few moves later their asking me to accept a religion that i founded.

So I'm like no problem ,good idea thanks for asking.

You get points for that to .

I think accepting a religion can cause more problems than its worth.

Free religion rules. You can watch the whole trade board go from wont trade to will trade just for taking free religion.

Its a good thing that you dont have to have the state religion in order to get the coins from the shrine,how bad would that be ?

Think i got off subject a bit here but i say let the shrine do its job,so you dont have to waste production building missionaries.

[Dominae]

For me the value of Missionaries lies in their offensive use in neighboring nations. The boost to relations you get by having the same State Religion as another civ can be a lifesaver, allowing better "control" over diplomacy.

[The keeper]

I think the odds of a religion failing to spread are x/7 where x is the number of religions currently in that city. I am looking through the xml files trying to find proof of this.

[Shr3dZ]

On my last game a couple of things happened that I was surprised about:

1) I went 3 for 3 spamming my religion into 3 spanish cities that had 2 religions already, I didnt even try to spam into their cities that had 4 - never seen that before.

2) Half way thru the game I met the Americans and Japanese on their own island, well they musta had closed borders the whole time b/c when I got there, ALL the american cities had no religion, I was happy to fill them with my own, I just made a new best friend - never seen that before either.

[The keeper]

In my previous game (which I just lost) I was spreading religions throughout my empire. My third cultural city, I needed to get a fourth religion. It took me 4 tries to get a Jewish missionary to succeed in spreading their faith.


VERY late in the game, a city flipped to me which was hindu. I switched to organized religion to buy a hindu missionary. 3 turns later, Free Religion global civic was passed. I had 1 shot to get hinduism to spread in that city, and as luck would have it, I succeeded. I had a city that had:

Confuanist temple
Confucian Academy
Jewish Temple
Jewish Synogogue.
Christian Temple
Christian Cathedral.
Islamic Temple
Islamic Mosque
Hindu Temple.

5 religions, 9 religious buildings. 650+ culture/turn when the spacerace was completed.

(couldn't get hinduism to the third city in time)

[Yosho]

Re: The Value of Missionaries

Originally posted by Blake
Is it worth building missionaries purely for the +1 gold in your shrine?

Yes. Yes it is.

...

In conclusion: Missionaries are outrageously good value on Marathon and should be spammed as long as there are places to put them; it's hard to find a better investment. On other game speeds they are moderately good value, definitely worth building.

Ok. What if another civ has gone free religion? Is it still worth building missionaries for the gold, do you think, even though you're helping his economy and it's not likely to have any diplomatic effects?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by alva
I usually go the other way, I'll (start by) spread religion to cities that already have a religion, hoping that the ones that don't get one for free.
Not sure if that's the best way though.

I send them to the biggest cities first, particularly ones in other nations. This way they have a higher chance of converting to your religion. If they haven't founded any, that is.