Missionaries

[dolf]

why is it only possible to have 3 finished missionairies at the same time?

[Indon]

Three finished or queued missionaries, of any given religion (So if you have monasteries for every religion / organized religion, you could have a max of 21 missionaries finished or queued).

Probably to prevent someone from making a production city to churn out state religion missionaries once every turn until the entire world is under the sway of your faith (which wouldn't take very long at all if you got a missionary every single turn or more).

[dolf]

so?
I don't see the problem of that

[Indon]

It would, in the end, make Free Religion the most powerful religious civic, because it would be easy to get every religion you could access into every one of your cities.

Generally, if a rule makes a single strategy decidedly superior to all other competing strategies, it's not a good rule.

[dolf]

well you stil can do that (with 3 miss. p/r).
The thing you described also goes for the enemie.
Don't think that is a strategie, it takes a long time and production

[Nugog]

I guess that one of the functions of religion in the game is to influence and add another dimension to diplomacy. It can also affect your decisions regarding declarations of war.

If you could just spam missionaries to spread your religion to all other civ's, then this dimension would be lost.

I'm also guessing (and only guessing as I've never played CIV3) that it could also be considered another form of ICS (is that IRS??), and that the monetary advantages if you did this combined with the special building of that religion would lead to a "one gameplan" style of strategy, reducing the amount of strategy in CIV.

[dolf]

mmmmm

for which 1 do you always go?
(I usualy get confusialism)

[Nugog]

I tend to play Pangea on Marathon, so I almost always try and get Judaism.

The main reason for this is that by this time I usually have a good trade network setup, and this combined with close borders, and most civ's having open borders, I find that it spreads really well, leading to great financial bonuses!

If you have a bit of a search of the CIV forums you will find some really good threads on religion, and lots of different opinions as to which to go for, and why, with lots of input from the people who really know their stuff!

[Smellycowsquid]

On my most recent games, I have never been in the race for the three early ones, usually I end up doing CS slingshot and getting Confuc. in the process, sometimes I'll get later religions, but generally not.

[Bushface]

Three missionaries at a time

This limit was coded by the developers: doubtless some modders can explain how to alter it if this is felt absolutely necessary.
But even as things stand, you can spread religions quickly if you are running Organised Religion and can train Missionaries without Monasteries. Train three in cities from which each can reach a city which does not have the religion you want to spread in one turn without using all its movement points, spread the religion on arrival (so now you have no missionaries), find places from which the same conditions apply, and repeat until every reachable city has listened to the spreading word. Assuming that you have the relevant Shrine, this will bring in 3 extra base gold per turn if all your missions are successful: I get a failure rate of about one in ten. If you can't achieve the train/move/spread in one turn, of course spreading will take longer.

[Feyd]

I can understand the 3 at a time limit. It's a little annoying, but looking at modern missionaries it fits. People are willing to go, but you have to keep some of the flock at home and not EVERYONE is willing. I would actually have also made them work like settlers and workers requiring the city to stop growth, but nbd.

One thing I would LOVE to see is an automated function for missionaries. Just automate and they will go spread the word to the nearest city without that faith. Now THAT would be something I'd like to see modded.

[Arrian]

It's gotta be a design decision to prevent late-game spamming of missionaries.

-Arrian (Confu/Taoist most often)

[joncnunn]

In addition, the max surplus hammers that carry forward is raw production -1 for a same reason. (There's a few other units this is sometimes noticable on; but missonaries is the most)

Originally posted by Arrian
It's gotta be a design decision to prevent late-game spamming of missionaries.

-Arrian (Confu/Taoist most often)