Missionary fails to spread religion

[ybrevo]

Im am trying to go for a culture victory for the first time, and therefore I am building quite a few missionaries to spread as many religions to my 3 major cities as possible (I have founded hinduism, konfucianism and taoism myself). Now, the most annoying thing is when they fail, because I can´t see the reason why they should.

Does anyone here have some good advise how to avoid lousy missionaries who can´t do their job?
Is there something I have overlooked - eg. in my choice of civics?

ybrevo

[Robert]

missionaries fail to spread their religion once in a while. It's just 'random'.
Though there are some factors that influence it:

- a missionairy in a city with NO religions always succeeds
- the more religions present in a city, the bigger the change the missionairy fails.
- if the city is the holy city for 1 or more religions, the change that the missionairy fails is bigger
- if the city is a foreign city, the change that the missionairy fails is bigger.

conclusion, if a foreign city has 6 religions and is the holy city for 3 religions, it's pretty difficult to get the 7th religion in.
If your city only has 1 religion it's pretty easy for you to get a 2nd religion in.

If a missionairy fails, just try it again.

[MoonWolf]

What about state religion? Could that have something to say?

[ybrevo]

Thanks CyberShy!

I was aware that the risk to fail in a foreign city with strong religions was big, but I didn´t think this would be a problem in my own cities.

So, I will just try again, and if it IS random, I might just - ahemmm ... - save the game before letting the missionary spread his wisdom

ybrevo

[snoopy369]

If you save and reload, you would have to do something to change the random seed; or select the 'new random seed on reload' option. By default, you will get the exact same random roll as before when reloading.

It is not true I don't believe that a missionary will always succeed in an empty city, i'm fairly sure I've had a failure or two before on empty cities. However, it is certainly much more likely to fail with more religions in a city.

Don't forget about Theocracy as well

[ybrevo]

snoopy - thanks for the technical information on the "cheating" possibility. If my missionaries commit suicide 4 or 5 more times in this game of mine, I will try the random reload. Dang, I could have build a scaring army instead.

Yes, Theocracy is better for war than for spreading religion, isn´t it?

ybrevo

[rah]

Nice to know, I've never had one fail in a no religion city so I didn't think it was possible.

[wodan11]

If you're going to go to the trouble to save and reload... wouldn't it be a lot easier simply to go into WB and give yourself another couple or three missionaries?

Wodan

[Fleme]

Lock modified assets and no new random seed on reload imo. Just take it just like any other defeat.

[ybrevo]

Originally posted by wodan11
If you're going to go to the trouble to save and reload... wouldn't it be a lot easier simply to go into WB and give yourself another couple or three missionaries?

Wodan

Oh no, Wodan!
That is not fair play, is it?

If I save and reload, I make sure that my missionary doesn´t crash the game in the process of having a seminar on relics and pilgrims routes.

No, honestly I will just be the victim of whatever happens, even if it screws up my quest for a culture victory.
Learning by doing - the hard way.

ybrevo

[wodan11]

How would it screw things up? By that point in the game, you should have a couple of production cities which can crank missionaries out in 2 turns or so. No worries.

Wodan

[VoiceOfUnreason]

If you are going to go into world builder, just convert the city by hand - why bother with missionaries....

Originally posted by CyberShy
- if the city is the holy city for 1 or more religions, the change that the missionairy fails is bigger

The code in the SDK strongly suggests that this is false.

Originally posted by snoopy369
It is not true I don't believe that a missionary will always succeed in an empty city, i'm fairly sure I've had a failure or two before on empty cities.

I'd love to see an example, as this would clearly violate the code in the SDK.

[Blaupanzer]

Thank you, Voice. I have never seen an empty city fail to take the first missionary's religion.

[snoopy369]

It's certainly possible I incorrectly believed a city was un-religioned I thought one failed in my last game, but perhaps it had a religion spread automatically shortly before my missionary came in...

[Blaupanzer]

Snoop, I have had that happen. A religion comes in by road or river, then your guy shows up on same turn and instead of converting, the town burns him at the stake. Yuck!