Great Prophet Spawning Problem

[Aerowind]

I would like to let my faith accumulate, however once I hit an x amount of faith a great prophet spawns even when I set it to "remind me later". It does not make sense if it says remind me later and when it hits x point it generates one anyway....I would like to let my faith build up, hence remind me later. Is this a game mechanic intended to not have faith saved up a huge amount to not make faith something overpowering if there is a monopoly of it of some sort by a single player or few players, or something related to that?

I am getting over 60 faith per turn and it takes 800 faith to hit the great prophet. If it is something intended to not let it build up to a huge amount as it would make some sort of super faith advantage when you can buy great people later in the game or something related to that? I am playing as Greece on the easiest difficult to help learn the game, so maybe relatively speaking over 60 faith per turn and growing... is too much? Of course if that is just the way it is, on the easiest difficult it's not like I need it as I think I'm well ahead of all the other civs, but this is still rather dissapointing given what I was expected with that part of the game.

[leandrombraz]

It's probably a rare bug. When you set to "remind me later", it should merely give you a warning that you can buy something, it doesn't buy for you. Start a new game and see if this will happen again, it shouldn't happen.

[Damsteri]

Great Prophets spawn automatically until you reach the industrial era. It can't be prevented. Great Persons can be bought with faith when you reach industrial era and also faith can be stored for Great Persons only after you reach industrial era, it's the turning point in the religion system in the game.

[Aerowind]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

It's probably a rare bug. When you set to "remind me later", it should merely give you a warning that you can buy something, it doesn't buy for you. Start a new game and see if this will happen again, it shouldn't happen.

I was really hoping it wasn't a bug and just something I was missing or unaware of in the game, although it really should be a bug given the "remind me later" option.

Originally posted by Damsteri:

Great Prophets spawn automatically until you reach the industrial era. It can't be prevented. Great Persons can be bought with faith when you reach industrial era and also faith can be stored for Great Persons only after you reach industrial era, it's the turning point in the religion system in the game.

I was reading some stuff similiar to this before I decided to ask myself, you kinda summed up the bits and pieces of what I read, so I'll assume this is true, it sorta does make sense. But what I am thinking to myself now is... Leandrombraz says it's a bug, Damsteri says it's how it religion is until industrial era with the great prophet. Maybe it depends on what version is being played since there were a few upgraded ones, I'm playing the complete edition with everything, hopefully that's why it might be diferent.

Anyway still having fun with the game, thank you both for helping me.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Aerowind:

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

It's probably a rare bug. When you set to "remind me later", it should merely give you a warning that you can buy something, it doesn't buy for you. Start a new game and see if this will happen again, it shouldn't happen.

I was really hoping it wasn't a bug and just something I was missing or unaware of in the game, although it really should be a bug given the "remind me later" option.

Originally posted by Damsteri:

Great Prophets spawn automatically until you reach the industrial era. It can't be prevented. Great Persons can be bought with faith when you reach industrial era and also faith can be stored for Great Persons only after you reach industrial era, it's the turning point in the religion system in the game.

I was reading some stuff similiar to this before I decided to ask myself, you kinda summed up the bits and pieces of what I read, so I'll assume this is true, it sorta does make sense. But what I am thinking to myself now is... Leandrombraz says it's a bug, Damsteri says it's how it religion is until industrial era with the great prophet. Maybe it depends on what version is being played since there were a few upgraded ones, I'm playing the complete edition with everything, hopefully that's why it might be diferent.

Anyway still having fun with the game, thank you both for helping me.

Go with what Damsteri said. I looked up, he is right. Probably I never realized that because I never tried to save faith in early game, so if the game bought a profhet, I would buy it in anyway and I didn't give much attention, but now it make sense. Sorry for the wrong info, I shall live in shame for the rest of my days =/

[zxcvbob]

You can race thru the Renaissance era into the Industrial to prevent GP's from spawning; also buy a missionary or inquisitor to bleed off some faith points. That's also one reason I like to get at least one religious building (pagoda is my favorite); so I will have something to spend faith on besides GP's.

I don't remember the fastest path to the Industrial era; the fastest path to Modern is Radio.

[retjero]

Someone else suggested this in another post. If you are building tall, put an inqusitor in each city, so no room for GP to create. Should prevent other religions from converting you too.

Update edit - I had read this strategy on civfanatic. Just tried it out and it did NOT work. Pre-industrial time with an inquisitor in each of my three cities and a new Great Prophet popped up in the capital. Got a message saying I had to move a stacked unit.

[Damsteri]

Buy inquisator(s) early, if you don't have anything else to buy and you don't want to buy missionaries. You need at least one inquisator in your holy city, or you are taking too many risks, and those inquisators are cheaper in earlier eras. I have done many times that what retjero suggested, bought an inquisator for every of my cities when I was playing tall.

Quite common strategy is to choose one passive follower belief while the other follower belief is a faith-sink, which allows you to burn faith, like those faith buildings (pagoda/cathedral/mosque/monastary). I normally always go with that strategy. Sometimes I go with two faith buildings, if I have a very good faith production. I don't like to go with two passive belief unless my founder belief requires early spreading of religion with missionaries. So, I normally always have something where faith can be used and the main problem in the topic (too much faith before industrial era) is very rare case.

There is almost always some good and beneficial ways to use faith before industrial era. Maybe there is more about to learn about how to maximize benefits from a religion?

[Aerowind]

I was going to use the excess faith to buy units, but I already have a ton lol(close to 30, maybe over that now and still more to come), I am playing on the easiest difficult because I didn't want my first playthrough to be too challenging when I was learning the basic stuff. That's probably why it's a rare problem because everything is rather easy at the moment. I'll try the inquisator thing though, that makes sense, I shouldn't underestimate the AI too much. I kind of regret playing on the easiest difficulty, still fun and feels good to be overpowered but of course less of the challenging and rewarding aspect of the game.

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Originally posted by Aerowind:

I was really hoping it wasn't a bug and just something I was missing or unaware of in the game, although it really should be a bug given the "remind me later" option.




I was reading some stuff similiar to this before I decided to ask myself, you kinda summed up the bits and pieces of what I read, so I'll assume this is true, it sorta does make sense. But what I am thinking to myself now is... Leandrombraz says it's a bug, Damsteri says it's how it religion is until industrial era with the great prophet. Maybe it depends on what version is being played since there were a few upgraded ones, I'm playing the complete edition with everything, hopefully that's why it might be diferent.

Anyway still having fun with the game, thank you both for helping me.

Go with what Damsteri said. I looked up, he is right. Probably I never realized that because I never tried to save faith in early game, so if the game bought a profhet, I would buy it in anyway and I didn't give much attention, but now it make sense. Sorry for the wrong info, I shall live in shame for the rest of my days =/

That's okay, like Damsteri said too much faith is rare before the industrial era, it's good to know it's not a bug or something but rather a part of what should be happening.

Thanks again guys, I'll try to rush to the industrial era, but going to conquer at least one civ before I start rushing though, kinda curious as to how that would work out, whichever one is bothering me the most most likely. I'm using the biggest world option and max number of civs on there so a lot to choose from.

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by Aerowind:

I am playing on the easiest difficult because I didn't want my first playthrough to be too challenging when I was learning the basic stuff. That's probably why it's a rare problem because everything is rather easy at the moment.

That's probably the cause, because the difficulty level 1 Settler is a tutorial level or something like that. AI is so handicapped in that diff level that Human player just can't lose. I recommend to use either diff levels 2 or 3 for your next game, unless you think you want to jump directly to level 4 Prince where AI has no handicaps, and it is the "normal" diff level.

[Aerowind]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

Originally posted by Aerowind:

I am playing on the easiest difficult because I didn't want my first playthrough to be too challenging when I was learning the basic stuff. That's probably why it's a rare problem because everything is rather easy at the moment.

That's probably the cause, because the difficulty level 1 Settler is a tutorial level or something like that. AI is so handicapped in that diff level that Human player just can't lose. I recommend to use either diff levels 2 or 3 for your next game, unless you think you want to jump directly to level 4 Prince where AI has no handicaps, and it is the "normal" diff level.

I'll try the prince one next time since that is the normal one, I don't want the AI to have anymore handicaps. And then maybe I'll try deity...the difficulty description makes it sound like it's almost impossible to win lol.

[maj.solo]

This is how the game is designed. What I write below will make you never have excess religion no matter how strong religion you have.

Play with many cities. It will take awhile to fill them with mosques pagodas monasteries and cathedrals. You can only have 2 of these 4 in your religion. Many cities means many shrines and temples. If you are lucky you managed to get mosque and pagoda as a start and a neighbor got monasteries and cathedrals. Take one or all his cities and buy a inquisitor and a missionary. Go to one of your cities and use the inquisitor and if the town did not turn use the missionary also and then add monastery and cathedral to your city too, and also immediately same turn buy a new inquisitor in a single turn cause after one turn the city might go back to your own old religion depending on your religion pressure. Always have enough religion stored before you do this. If you can not buy more foreign missionaries you lost the ability to do this in each of your cities. So save up and do this on a city every time you have spare religion points.

This is great when you go down Aesthetics tree and get Flourishing Of The Arts which boost culture in a city that has made a wonder. Adding 3 - 5 base culture to Flourishing Arts percentage boost is effective. Further percentage boosts with broadcast tower and maybe more.

It can be fun if the foreign religion has selected that missionaries are cheap.

When you have access to two religions use two missionaries instead, Plant the city, use the foreign missionary, buy their religious buildings. Wait one turn. And use your missionary the turn after to turn to your religion using only one charge. The city must not grow to pop 2 cause then it take many charges to turn to your religion. Then it is better to wait and just let your religious pressure do the job. This is ok if you plant just one city with foreign religion it will turn to your religion quite soon. But do not let this happen if you have completed Notre Dame or Forbidden Palace and is very happy and want to plant up to 10 new cities with only foreign religion cause now you only strengthened the foreign religion and your holy city will have to work for a long time to turn them all.

If you do all this have excess religion and still have not reached Industrialization you are not researching fast enough.

Then you can do two more things

A) create holy sites with prophets that pop out. If you have Theocracy they will produce 3 gold but add that market and a bank it looks much better,

B) Go into religion overview and check all foreign religions pantheon believes. You are looking for religions with +1 faith from desert, +1 faith from tundra tiles, or +1 culture from jungle tiles. Snatch or go to war to get such missionaries. In the Piety tree you need "Religious Tolerance" which add the Pantheon belief of the second most popular religion. Your double religion cities are always dirty with that second religion so you have to clean them up using your own Inquisitor so they get clean. Then you touch them with one charge from this 3rd religion missionary, You have to calculate if it is worth it.

Have to add that "Religious Tolerance" only need your city to have a religion, not necessarily your religion for second most popular pantheon to be in effect,

But say you have a city working 6 or more desert tiles ( and you have fertilizer ) and you do this you get 6 more faith per turn. There is only a few cities you might find worth doing this on. But the Pantheon +1 culture from jungle tiles is better cause I always have jungle on my maps.

All it takes is "Religious Tolerance" a clean city and a gentle touch and your 20 or 30 pop cities will get more from the tiles then the buildings inside.

I bet your opinion now is you can not have too much religion.

C) I always have 2 policies that I get. In Honor tree there is "Military Caste" which gives +1 happiness and +2 culture if a unit is stationed there. I let my other cities send a cheap scout. Now my old cities can "export" happiness and culture to brand new cities.

The other is in Tradition tree "Aristocracy" +1 happiness for every 10 citizen. So if you can go to 9 you can go to 10 and if 19 you can go to 20 and so on.

India is a nation with twice unhappiness from number of cities and half from population.

So taking all of the above and you plant a new city and do the things above you get

Mosque +1
Pagoda +2
Cathedral +1
"Scout" +1

means you can go to size 5 without needing to build a colosseum.

In INDIAs case 5 + 2 = 10 so you have to add

Aristocracy +1 +1

So India can with this setup go to size 12 without building a happiness building. Do you not love religion? But India badly needs Notre Dame and Forbidden Palace. Reload and use an Engineer if you have to.

[leandrombraz]

How do you end up commenting on an 11 years old thread?