Religion Asymmetry

[steveg700]

So, this happens a lot, and I'm wondering if anybody understands the root cause.

I found Judaism, and set it up as a state religion. It occasionally spreads to other leaders or cities randomly, but for the most it takes effort on my part to build disciples and convert citizens.

When you have Judaism, Christianity will inevitably crop up and despite no effort my part will take root like wildfire. Relatives, governors, family heads will all start flipping like hotcakes. Every turn. I'm not pushing this in any way, at least not intentionally. Christianity's spread eclipses Judaism's handily.

And religions start to come in form other nations. while religions from my holy cities remains self-contained.

So....What the heck? Is this another area where the game is being "dynamic" by putting the player into a reactive whack-a-mole state? That is to say, the game puts its finger on the scale to aysmmetrically favor conversions to a religion that isn't the state religion?

OR are some religions just more contagious than others?

To be clear, I understand the role that laws like Tolerance play in managing religion. I know about that stuff and I use them. This is not so much seeking the cure as I am trying to understand the nature of the disease. I would tend to think that at best a religion I am actively spreading to all cities, governors, and family heads should have an edge over an unsponsored religion's spread.

 

[Solver]

The two second-tier religions spread a bit faster than first-tier religions (15% vs 10% base chance to spread). This is to give the second-tier religions a chance of becoming significant. Further, each theology increases spread chance by 5%, except Revelation, which adds a whole 25%. If you founded a religion you want to spread passively, Revelation is a good choice, otherwise random spread is unreliable.

It also helps to understand how religion spreads, and how geography plays a role. At first, a religion can spread to cities within 13 tiles of its holy city. Then for each city (globally) that gets the religion, the distance increases by 1. So the more the religion spreads, the greater influence it can exert. But a remote and isolated holy city will have a harder time spreading its religion.

And to keep some control of your families, pay special attention to family heads. A family converts to the religion that is the most popular among its members, but the family head counts as two people, so it's more useful to convert the family head to the one true faith.

 

[steveg700]

Wonderful information.

Thank you for the information. Knowing the inner workings--and not just the workarounds--is very helpful to me, and I would hope others.

Bonus question: Will people only convert to a religion if they don't already have one? In particular will a paganist convert to a "real" religion?

Pagaism isn't addressable through the High Synod mission, so it can be one of the harder, (although the family head can intercede here sometimes, unlike outsider religions).

 

[Solver]

From a strategy point of view, paganism is very different because city spread is 100% under your control. It only spreads to cities through shrines, it will not spread passively, nor will you get foreign paganism. I'd also say that having multiple religions in your empire is one of the things with a lot of potential payoff, if you can keep them happy.

Characters don't normally switch religions, they stay with the one they picked, unless you use the mission to convert them. Though as many things in the game, there are exceptions through events. When picking a religion, characters also follow some intuitive rules, for instance a character is more likely to pick a religion that is present in their family's cities, and a governor is especially likely to pick a religion present in their city.

 

[steveg700]

Still some oddities I can't account for here. Even after flipping several of my cities, the one neighboring Judaism's holy city would not flip. After a little under years I got a round to sending a disciple over.

 

[Solver]

I guess it's well within the statistical probability. Religions don't strictly spend to the closest city first, and the passive spread chance isn't that high in the first place. Assuming you had two theologies for Judaism, that's 20% per turn, and that's just not very fast. After 20 years, that's a ~20% probability that you've only had <=3 spreads.

 

[fjordan]

Could you elaborate a bit more? Does the say 10% mean that every turn there is a 10% chance it spreads from the holy city to a city in range, or does it mean each city in range has a 10% chance to receive it (I guess it is the first)? And does it always spread a maximum distance from the holy city only, or do cities that have the religion count as a starting point using the modified distance?

Also, I accepted an ambition to found a religion but have no idea what to do to accomplish that. I thought it was city culture level up, but it seems you can get it randomly too. Does having a pagan or other active religion have any influence on this?

Religion mechanism could use a bit more background .

Thanks in advance.

 

[Solver]

Right, the spread chance (so 10% / 15% initially for Tier1/2 religions, and whatever it gets to be later after theologies) is the base chance per turn. The spread originates from the holy city, but the distance increases with each city of that religion as I said.

Religion founding isn't random at all. Check the tooltip of a specific religion to see how to found it. The two first-tier religions require specialists. Judaism is founded by having 2 Ranchers, Zoroastrianism by 2 Acolytes. Christianity can be founded in a high-population (12 pop) city once there are 2 cities following Judaism, and Manichaeism gets founded once two Christian and two Zoroastrian cities exist.

 

[CornPlanter]

Does cities being (not) connected affect the chances of religion spreading?

 

[Solver]

No.