Religion
Reformation Beliefs
"For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous,
no matter how fine the works he does." - Martin Luther
Reformation Beliefs
"For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous,
no matter how fine the works he does." - Martin Luther
Introduction
Reformation beliefs were introduced in the Brave New World expansion. In order to adopt a reformation belief, you must adopt the Reformation social policy in the revamped Piety social policy tree. Because taking Reformation requires the investment of five policies in Piety, the benefits of a reformation belief and the other Piety beliefs taken must be weighed against the opportunity costs associated with that investment. Most of the reformation beliefs provide "follower-like" benefits, although the benefits of some reformation beliefs are limited to the religion's founder. As with other beliefs, it is important that the reformation belief provide benefits that interact well with your other chosen beliefs and your desired path to victory.
Select the Reformation Social Policy
- Key concepts
- Reformation beliefs
- Strategic considerations in selecting a reformation belief
- Conclusion
Key Concepts
- Faith
- a type of yield or "currency" that is central to the religion system. For an overview of faith and how to generate it, see "How Does the Religion System Work?"
- Belief - the core element of any pantheon or religion, providing specific benefits depending on circumstances
- Pantheon - a pre-religion belief that is absorbed into (and superseded by) a religion. When incorporated into a religion, the pantheon belief functions as an additional follower belief. For an overview of pantheons and how to found them, see "How Does the Religion System Work?" and "Pantheon Beliefs."
- Religion - a set of beliefs, consisting of a pantheon belief, a founder belief, two follower beliefs, an enhancer belief and potentially a reformation belief. Establishing a religion includes two major steps: founding the religion and enhancing the religion. A religion also may add a reformation belief by selecting the Reformation policy in the Piety social policy tree.
- Founding a Religion - using a Great Prophet to select a founder belief, a follower belief, and a name and symbol for the religion
- Enhancing a Religion - using a Great Prophet to select a second follower belief and an enhancer belief.
- Great Prophet - a type of Great Person that can be used to found or enhance a religion, to spread a religion or to create a Holy Site (a tile improvement that has a base yield of 6 )
- Missionary - a civilian unit that can be used to spread a religion (available only after your religion is founded)
- Inquisitor - a civilian unit that can be used to eliminate other religions from a city that you own (available only after your religion is enhanced)
- Followers - population of a city following a pantheon or religion
- Pressure - a mechanism used to convert followers of a pantheon or religion to another religion (or to convert non-followers of any pantheon or religion to a religion). For more information about how pressure works, see "Spreading and Defending Your Religion."
Select a Reformation Belief
There are three reformation beliefs that provide tools to assist you in spreading to other cities or defending your religion from other religions.
There are two reformation beliefs that can help you build your military.
There is one reformation belief that is specifically designed to enhance your science.
There is one reformation belief that is specifically designed to boost your tourism.
The final two reformation beliefs have utility for a wide range of victory conditions.
- Evangelism: Missionaries' Spread Religion action erodes existing pressure from other religions. This is a surprisingly powerful belief, particularly when coupled with the Holy Order enhancer belief (Missionaries and Inquisitors cost 30% less faith) or the Missionary Zeal enhancer belief (Missionary conversion strength +25%). As the game progresses and city religious pressures build over time, ordinary Missionaries become much less effective, often having no effect on city religion composition when spreading. Evangelism-powered Missionaries behave like "mini-Great Prophets" by eroding 25% of the accumulated pressure from other religions when they do a spread action. A single Evangelism-powered missionary may be able to convert a 15-population city with two spread actions, particularly if you have also selected Missionary Zeal and/or built the Great Mosque of Djenne (Missionaries born in city can spread religion three times).
- Underground Sect: Your spies exert religious pressure on the cities they occupy. (Note that this belief operates like a founder belief, in that it can only be used by the founder of the religion.) The effect of this belief is pretty underwhelming, since the religious pressure impact of a spy usually could be more easily replicated with a trade route. Specifically, a spy will exert 5 cities worth of pressure (30 pressure at Standard speed) on the city in which the spy is located, but only if there is another source of religious pressure in that city (either trade route pressure or another city of your religion within pressure range). If there is no other source of pressure on that city, this belief has no effect. The city banner tooltip that normally shows pressure will not show the spy pressure (presumably so the city owner does not know that a spy is present).
- Unity of the Prophets: Inquisitors and Great Prophets reduce this religion's presence by half (instead of eliminating it). This is a purely defensive reformation belief. If you have successfully spread your religion, this reformation belief (which applies to any city following your religion) will help you defend your religious domain from enemy Missionary and Great Prophet "spam". This belief will also prevent a holy city's "holy city" character from being eliminated by an Inquisitor. It is important to note, however, that this belief provides no protection against passive religious pressure, whether city-to-city pressure, trade route pressure, or pressure from Underground Sect-powered spies.
There are two reformation beliefs that can help you build your military.
- Heathen Conversion: Missionaries convert adjacent barbarian units to this civilization. (Note that this belief operates like a founder belief, in that it can only be used by the founder of the religion.) Not only does this reformation belief make your Missionaries immune to barbarians, it can be an effective way to build an army or navy. Unlike Germany's Unique Ability, which only applies when you clear a barbarian camp, and the Ottoman Unique Ability, which only applies to ship battles, this reformation belief applies to all barbarian encounters, does not require combat and has no random element to it -- walk or swim a your Heathen Conversion-powered Missionary up to a crowd of barbarian units and see them instantly converted to your civilization. If a barbarian unit is in a camp, the camp is immediately cleared when the barbarian converts, which can be a quick way to satisfy city-state quests. And barbarian conversions do not require the Missionary use any of its spread actions -- send your unescorted Missionary into the wilderness, converting barbarians on the way and then perform ordinary spread missions at the Missionary's destination. If you don't want or need the barbarian units you have converted, you can gift them to city-states for more influence or march them into your territory and scrap them for a bit of gold. However, as powerful as this belief can be, it is far less useful on higher difficulty levels, since most barbarian camps will be cleared by the AI civs fairly early in the game.
- Religious Fervor: Use to purchase Industrial Era (and later) land units. This is the Industrial Era counterpart to the Holy Warriors follower belief (use faith to purchase pre-Industrial land units), but is substantially less valuable. The main weakness of this belief is the steep rise in the faith cost of Industrial and later units as compared to pre-Industrial units. For example, a Crossbowman may cost 240 faith, but a Machine Gun will cost 700 faith. Not only does this belief require significant levels of faith generation, it comes at a time in the game when you are likely to be hoarding faith to buy Great Persons. As with Holy Warriors, this belief is potentially dangerous if you spread your religion to your neighbors, since they too will be able to buy units with faith, potentially overwhelming you with even more massive armies.
- Jesuit Education: May build Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with . Science buildings cost the same amount of faith as religious buildings and Missionaries and Inquisitors in each era. So (at Standard speed) they start at 200 faith in the Medieval era (when Universities are first available), but rise to 300 faith in the Renaissance era, 400 faith in the Industrial era (when Public Schools are first available), and 500 faith in the Modern era (when Research Labs are first available). If you don't faith-purchase all of the science buildings that you need before entering the Atomic era, the faith costs are probably too high by that point. Like other religious buildings and units, science buildings can get the 20% discount from Mandate of Heaven.
If you have sufficient faith generation to take advantage of this reformation belief, it will save you significant amounts of gold and time. Purchase scientific buildings immediately after researching the required technology, for an immediate science boost, saving gold for other purposes (or to supplement your faith purchases). However, if you have strong gold generation and/or relatively poor faith generation, this belief is not compelling. Also, like Religious Fervor, this reformation belief is available to any city following your religion, including enemy cities, so it may not actually help you catch up to your neighbors in the science race.
There is one reformation belief that is specifically designed to boost your tourism.
- Sacred Sites: All buildings purchased with provide 2
each. This belief is the cornerstone of the so-called "Sacred Sites ICS Culture Victory" strategy -- select two religious buildings as your follower beliefs (e.g., Mosques and Pagodas), found as many small cities as possible, as quickly as possible, and build only shrines, temples, monuments and the occasional archer or other defensive military unit. The goal is to generate as much faith and culture as possible, to allow you to purchase religious buildings in each city and to plow through the Piety social policy tree as quickly as possible. Since each religious building will generate 2 tourism, it is possible (assuming you have sufficient cities and faith generation and have met all other civilizations early enough) to achieve a Cultural Victory before other civilizations have even researched Archaeology. This strategy is generally only feasible on middle and lower difficulty levels, where you are more likely to have your choice of reformation beliefs and the AI civilizations are less likely to react militarily to ICS-style rapid expansion. This reformation belief is also available to any city following your religion, including enemy cities, so you may find yourself the victim of Sacred Sites tourism from other civs.
The final two reformation beliefs have utility for a wide range of victory conditions.
- Charitable Missions: Influence boosts from
gifts to city-states are increased by 30%. This is an incredibly useful reformation belief for any strategy that relies on city-state alliances (not just diplomatic victories). This belief stacks with the Philanthropy social policy (gold gifts to city-states produce 25% more influence), for a total of 55% more influence from gold gifts to city-states, resulting in massive gold savings. Because this belief operates like a founder belief, other civilizations following your religion cannot utilize it.
- To the Glory of God: Use to purchase any type of Great Person starting in the Industrial Era. This belief can be useful to all victory conditions, particularly with the shift of Great Person faith purchases from the various social policy tree openers to the finishers. If you have completed Tradition and Rationalism, you can already buy Great Engineers and Great Scientists with faith, but the cost of each quickly escalates, from 1,000 faith for the first, 1,500 faith for the second and 2,500 faith for the third, so it is rare that you will generate enough faith to buy more than three or four of each type. But what are your options when you need a different type of Great Person? To the Glory of God will allow you to buy a Great Writer for a quick burst of Political Treatise culture to finish Rationalism on schedule or grab a critical ideological tenet. Or buy a Great Artist for a late-game Golden Age, a Great Musician to perform a concert tour to eliminate ideological pressure, or a Great Merchant for a slug of gold and city-state influence. Like Charitable Missions, other civilizations following your religion cannot utilize it.
A threshold question is whether you should pursue any reformation beliefs. As noted above, adopting a reformation belief requires that you adopt five policies in Piety, which is a significant investment of culture. Also, the AI appears to be programmed to pursue reformation beliefs if they are pursuing a religion. In light of the AI's other advantages (depending on your chosen difficulty level), the AI may well beat you to Reformation and select the reformation belief or beliefs you were hoping to take. Unless you see a path to significant culture generation (such as an early cultural city-state alliance or a strong culture-generating pantheon), you may be well advised to invest your culture in other social policies.
If you do choose to open Piety to pursue a reformation belief, you should carefully monitor the progress of other civilizations through the Piety tree. The first three policies in Piety -- the opener (faster building times for shrines and temples), Organized Religion (+1 faith from shrines and temples) and Mandate of Heaven (20% discount on purchases of religious units and buildings) -- are generally beneficial to most religion strategies, but Religious Tolerance and Reformation are not worth pursuing if you can tell you have lost the race for the best reformation beliefs. So, before you take your next policy in Piety, scan the Global Politics and World Religion/Beliefs screens to assess your status in that race. If you are going to lose your desired beliefs, don't hesitate to cut your losses and shift your focus to other social policy options.
Assuming you are early to Reformation and have a choice of attractive reformation beliefs, you should carefully consider how the available beliefs will enhance your chosen strategy and fit with the other beliefs you have taken. For example, Sacred Sites is widely regarded as a required belief for a quick culture victory, but only if you have the ability to buy religious buildings (pagodas, mosques, cathedrals and monasteries) with faith and have superior faith generation from your pantheon or other beliefs to supplement the faith output of your Organized Religion-fueled shrines and temples and have the ability to found as many cities as possible (preferably 10+ cities). If you aren't able to assure those key elements, Sacred Sites, as powerful as it may be, may not be the best choice.
Conclusion
Reformation beliefs can be some of the most powerful beliefs in the game, but it is not always in your best interest to make the investment required to obtain a reformation belief. By the time you are in a position to select a reformation belief, the shape and direction of your empire should be coming into focus, and the political and religious landscape should be fairly clear, all of which should help you make a more informed decision about which, if any, reformation belief will best suit your needs.