The religion question

[binTravkin]

In SMAC you had to deal with much worse when infiltrated.

Yes and that was why I was trying to avoid infiltration as much as I could.
I even remind Googlie saying that EG is 80% of victory, once, which is probably too much for 7 team game, but still knowing your enemy is half the victory.

[Maniac]

Personally I considered the most important part of SMAC infiltration knowing the economic size, techs, military power etc of your rivals. In Civ4 you get plenty of information about everyone's economic size, techs and power rating for free (with F9, who needs spies?). All Civ4 gives extra with religion is line of sight. As long as we keep a decent military, so that no one would consider an opportunistic attack on a weak spot, I don't see at all what's the issue of people seeing our line of sight. *shrug*

[binTravkin]

Personally I considered the most important part of SMAC infiltration knowing the economic size, techs, military power etc of your rivals. In Civ4 you get plenty of information about everyone's economic size, techs and power rating for free (with F9, who needs spies?). All Civ4 gives extra with religion is line of sight. As long as we keep a decent military, so that no one would consider an opportunistic attack on a weak spot, I don't see at all what's the issue of people seeing our line of sight. *shrug*

You're simply assuming the optimal case scenario.
Of course we might be able keep everyone out of our borders, but there's enough chance we wont be that strong, and in that case, we'll only be giving more of an edge with that info.

Infiltration in SMAC is often used to reconstruct the actual map of the enemy and plan attack routes. As it gives information on the cities' garrisons, its pretty valuable.
Now compare that to civs complete range of sight in that cities radius - you not only see the roads, the improvements, the garrison, but also where exactly the city is (in case you hadn't the chance to explore), what are the units around it and in most cases - where those units are moving to.

It's much more than in SMAC for military planning.

[N35t0r]

They can also tell exactly what improvements you've got, and if you can't spread your religion into their cities, that's a big disadvantage right there...

[Mart]

It works the other way too

Let's prioritize on exploration, so we have contact with other civs for the purpose of getting our religion to their cities so WE can see.
How the game works re religion spreading? Probably if we sail a boat/galley, some other civ city can get our religion the same way?

[binTravkin]

Religions spread pretty randomly - each turn there's some chance which depends on whether the borders are opened (it can spread without open borders too), how far the two cities are and how many religions are there in the target city already.

Religion spread works both ways, sure, but one needs to be a religion founder and have that religion as state religion for it to show the city and its surroundings.

[Mart]

so even if we take over someone's holy city, that would not work for us when we choose this state religion?

[N35t0r]

If we capture the holy city, then we do win everything but the culture from the shrine, if they built it. So capturing a holy city with already built shrine is a very good scenario.

[Mart]

I found out that one can build a shrine (world wonder) with a GP in non-owned city. Playing as France I sent Great Prophet to Egyptian city (holy for Christianity, I had open borders) and game allowed me to build it for that civ.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by mart7x5
I found out that one can build a shrine (world wonder) with a GP in non-owned city. Playing as France I sent Great Prophet to Egyptian city (holy for Christianity, I had open borders) and game allowed me to build it for that civ.

WTF?!

That's surely news for me.

[binTravkin]

so even if we take over someone's holy city, that would not work for us when we choose this state religion?

By conquering a holy city you become a religion founder for said religion, so that will work.
However, I doubt we will have a chance at this anytime reasonably soon.

I found out that one can build a shrine (world wonder) with a GP in non-owned city. Playing as France I sent Great Prophet to Egyptian city (holy for Christianity, I had open borders) and game allowed me to build it for that civ.

Yeah, but who would do that? You basically gifted your prophet for their great benefit..

[N35t0r]

Unless the nanas miraculosly discover judaism just as we're ready to capture them

[binTravkin]

[Mart]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Yeah, but who would do that? You basically gifted your prophet for their great benefit..

well, so i tried just to know, ... exploring the game.
The plan was later to conquer the city. I almost did it. While I took some other size 3 city on my left, they burned my size 10 city on the right. I had to end the war... the holy city stayed Egyptian

[binTravkin]

More detailed analysis about teams religion-wise:

GS - they will have a religion soon and they aint b-lining for another one
Bananas - they dont appear to have potential for religion atm, but in a longer time they could try Judaism
Vox - almost dead, giving Hinduism to GS
Horde - they just finished Horseback Riding, which means, war preparations are under way; in such situation you'd rather need something to bolster military, like IW, or Construction later, especially if the target is Sarantium, who have a religion
Sarantium - has a religion, doesn't need another and is not likely to focus on monotheism (although could be trying CoL and confucianism)
Mercs - the black horse here, they are not really religion oriented, but for the sake of better economy they might be attempting to get one.

In other words, there's a good chance we could still get judaism even after some time.
We might even ask Bananas to research it and then take em..