I took a missionary to Paris and tried to spread religion. Straight away the leader was annoyed and asked me not to convert any more cities.
No problem. I am going for a cultural victory and war is the last thing on my mind.
So I continue to spread religion among my own cities and somewhat distant neighbours of France.
However, after a few turns it seems I have broken my promise.
None of France's cities show anything but their Parthenon icon.
Is this something that is bound to happen all the time? To a certain extent I cannot control my religious influence.
Next time I know. Don't convert France to have them ask to stop converting.
For worse (or much better). Kongo is spreading the religion for me to France. Could they have broken the promise as a proxy? I did not spread religion to France using religious units and I'm confused to how I broke my promise.
Best Answer
I noticed that I broke my promise after one of the forward-settled cities of the Aztecs failed to withstand the passive religious spread by close cities.
In my case the Aztec city did show the symbol of my own religion when I got the message about the broke promise, but this might just have happend by chance at the same time.
Since the game has just been released I can't be 100% sure but it definitely seems like passive spread CAN break the promise. (I'm not sure either if this is on purpose by the game developers since the player can't really controll passive spread)