How do you kill apostles?

[Jereo]

I finished my first Civ 6 game playing as Mvemba a Nzinga (Kongo) in Prince difficultty.

The game was going well. I was way ahead in every branch except for the religious one because I couldn't figure out how the Kong religious mechanic works. I couldn't even found a full religion.

But suddenly, germany sent a huge army of 30 apostles to convert my cities to his religion.

I tried to build some M'Banzas (the only way Kongo can get apostles) to kill his fanatic army but I just couldn't figure out how to kill them.

It doesn't seems to work the regular way (go to an adjacent tiles and attack).

Do I need to say that a few turn after, I lost the game.


So a few question :

Does anyone know how to kill apostles ?

Can anyone explain me how the Kongo religion mechanic work? Can you ever win a religion victory with Kongo or do you just have to ignore religion and focus on something else?

This apostle massive spam seems very powerful as they are difficult to kill or block. Do you have any strategy to counter that except preemptive destruction?

Thanks !

[SamBC]

Apostles and Inquisitors can attack other religious units, and don't require war to be declared. You attack just like normal combat.

They can also be killed immediately by military units, but that requires a declaration of war.

When a religious unit is killed, pressure for that religion is removed from nearby cities; if they were killed by a religious unit, pressure for that unit's religion is added to nearby cities.

[Astasia]

You can't start a religion or win a religious victory as Kongo. You can completely ignore that part of the game, or use the apostles you get to try and keep useful religions on your cities. I would turn that victory condition off if playing as them.

You kill apostles/missionaries by selecting one of your apostles or inquisitors and right clicking on them. It's basically a melee attack move, you don't have to be at war.

[Kotli]

Your Kongo you want every faction to spread their religions to you though as you get the founder bonuses of every religion that exists in your cities, and it the only way to get a religion.

[stephen dedalus]

I colonized a beachhead in the continent where China was, and a small army of Taoist apostles barged into my small territory, occupying the land I seriously needed to improve. So my builder was locked for many turns until those guys (very randomly) wandered away.

I understand apostles as a way to wage a religious war, but it makes no sense that (even with no war declared, and no open border treaty) they should barge into your lands and prevent even builders to move. At least make them transparent.

[Hekemon]

Originally posted by SamBC:

They can also be killed immediately by military units, but that requires a declaration of war.

Just now I got a message "While defending, your Apostole was destroyed by a Musketman (0 damage)
I am not in war with anyone.
I did not see this happening. It seems to have happened in the area of Mali, where religion is Islam.

Any idea how this could happen?

Edit: I reloaded a savegame - it was Barbarians.

[Kotli]

Yep barbs can kill/capture anything.

[Schaffner]

As already adviced Kongo cannot found a religion but gets the bonus from every religion that has followers in your cities.
Religious victory is not an option for them.

But even if you play another civ and have an own religion religous combat can be very annoying.
Somehow the ai has often luck and gets their apostels with +20 relgious combat power upgrade and if they also added the crusade trait to their religion (another +10 power) you will need 3-4 own apostels just to kill one from the ai and directly need to heal them afterwards. Inquistors are even one-shot fodder and cannot be used at all to fight them.