Religion
Enhancer Beliefs
"If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone" - Thomas Hardy
Enhancer Beliefs
"If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone" - Thomas Hardy
Introduction
A religion consists of a set of beliefs that are intended to improve your ability to win the game. Most of the enhancer beliefs primarily benefit the religion itself, facilitating its spread to other cities, although a few beliefs provide "follower-like" benefits. In general, the most attractive enhancer beliefs are those that either promote passive spread of a religion or facilitate active spread of the religion. It is important that the enhancer belief provide benefits that interact well with your chosen founder belief.
Select an Enhancer Belief
Other articles in this series provide an overview of the religion system, explain how to found and enhance your religion, review in detail the many available pantheon, founder, follower and reformation beliefs, and provide advice about how to spread and defend your religion.
Key Concepts
- Faith
- a type of "currency" or yield 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- Pantheon - a pre-religion belief that is absorbed into (and superseded by) a religion.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, and an enhancer 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 (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."
There are only 9 enhancer beliefs. As with pantheon, founder, follower and reformation beliefs, each enhancer belief can be taken by only one religion. So, it is important to enhance your religion as early as possible after founding your religion, to ensure that you can get your choice of enhancer beliefs. The most popular enhancer beliefs are those that accelerate the passive spread of a religion (by increasing the effects of pressure), followed by those that facilitate active spread (using Great Prophets and Missionaries). But there are several enhancer beliefs that provide military and faith benefits.
The 9 enhancer beliefs can be divided into 4 categories:
- Passive spread enhancer beliefs
- Active spread enhancer beliefs
- Military enhancer beliefs
- Faith-giving enhancer beliefs
Passive spread enhancer beliefs
There are three enhancer beliefs that promote the passive spread of a religion, by increasing the effects of pressure.
There are three enhancer beliefs that facilitate the active spread of a religion, by reducing the faith cost of Great Prophets, Missionaries or Inquisitors or increasing the conversion strength of Great Prophets or Missionaries.
There are only two enhancer beliefs that confer military benefits:
There is only one enhancer belief that provides additional faith.
Strategic considerations in selecting an enhancer beliefThere are three enhancer beliefs that promote the passive spread of a religion, by increasing the effects of pressure.
- Itinerant Preachers: Religion spreads to cities 30% further away. This belief extends the effects of each city's religious pressure from a 10-tile radius to a 13-tile radius, resulting in an approximately 69% increase in the area affected by each city's religious pressure. This facilitates both the initial spread of your religion and the ability of your empire to resist spread from other religions. Because this belief often results in a small number of followers in cities well distant from the core of your empire, it is well paired with founder beliefs that provide per-follower benefits (like Tithe and World Church), but is also very effective with founder beliefs that depend on your religion becoming the majority religion in a city.
- Religious Texts: Religion spreads 25% faster (50% with Printing Press). At Standard speed, this belief increases per-city pressure from 6 to 7.5 (displayed as 7, but it is 7.5), and to 9 once you research Printing Press. This facilitates both the initial spread of your religion and the ability of your empire to resist spread from other religions. This belief is well paired with founder beliefs that provide per-city benefits (like Ceremonial Burial, Church Property, Initiation Rights and, in a more specialized sense, Papal Primacy) that depend on your religion becoming the majority religion in a city, although it is also useful for founder beliefs that provide per-follower benefits.
- Religious Unity: Religion spreads to friendly city-states at double rate. Although more specialized than the other two passive spread enhancers, its effect on pressure (+100% pressure on friendly city-states) should not be underestimated, although the requirement that you be friends with the targeted city-state makes this belief somewhat less useful than Itinerant Preachers and Religious Texts. This belief is well paired with Papal Primacy for those pursuing a strategy of permanent friend status with nearby city-states. Also, as your religion spreads quickly to nearby city-states, pressure from those city-states and your other cities will help promote spread of your religion to other cities.
There are three enhancer beliefs that facilitate the active spread of a religion, by reducing the faith cost of Great Prophets, Missionaries or Inquisitors or increasing the conversion strength of Great Prophets or Missionaries.
Missionary
- Holy Order: Missionaries and Inquisitors cost 30% less . This is a particularly attractive belief when paired with the Interfaith Dialogue founder belief; with strong enough levels of faith generation, you can generate considerable amounts of science by dispatching swarms of low-cost Missionaries to attempt conversions of cities with large numbers of followers of other religions. This also pairs well with the Evangelism reformation belief, which enables Missionaries to counteract a portion of the accumulated pressure of other religions when spreading your religion.
- Messiah: Prophets 25% stronger and earned with 25% less . This belief is most attractive to those who are relatively late to enhance their religion and face considerable pressure from religions that began their spread earlier and more aggressively, either using passive spread enhancers or swarms of Missionaries and Great Prophets. This enhancer belief can be paired with the Initiation Rites founder belief, which will provide 100 gold when cities first convert to your religion, where you do not anticipate your spread actions to have lasting effect.
- Missionary Zeal: Missionary conversion strength +25%. Although enhanced conversion strength is helpful, Missionaries with Missionary Zeal still have difficulty converting cities with entrenched religions. However, when Missionary Zeal is paired with the Evangelism reformation belief, Missionaries can be effective much later in the game.
There are only two enhancer beliefs that confer military benefits:
- Defender of the Faith: +20% Combat Strength near friendly cities that follow this religion. This belief is most attractive to those pursuing a defensive game.
- Just War: +20% Combat Strength near enemy cities that follow this religion. A very attractive belief for warmongers. Spread your religion into the cities of your neighbors and then wage war with a combat bonus. Even better, take the Initiation Rites founder belief and bring a Great Prophet to convert your target and earn 100 gold as you surround the city.
There is only one enhancer belief that provides additional faith.
- Reliquary: Gain 50 each time a Great Person is expended. This is commonly regarded as the least attractive of the enhancer beliefs, but it can be used in conjunction with the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, resulting in 100 gold and 50 faith for each Great Person expended. Similar to the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the benefits of Reliquary are earned when the Great Person is finally expended by creation of a Great Person tile improvement or expending the Great Person to take advantage of the Great Person's special ability, such as accelerating research (Great Scientist) or rushing a building or wonder (Great Engineer). For a Great Prophet, Reliquary is triggered by forming a Holy Site or conducting the Great Prophet's last spread mission. (Note that, when playing as Sweden, gifting a Great Person to a city-state does not trigger Reliquary or the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.) Although Reliquary does reward a player who is generating a large number of Great Prophets or making extensive use of specialists to generate Great Persons (or, in the case of a warmonger, using Great Generals to make citadels), the amount of faith generated is too low to have a meaningful impact on accumulation of faith and does not facilitate spread of your religion.
Your enhancer belief should provide synergies with your founder belief. If you have chosen a founder belief whose benefit depends upon the number of cities or followers of your religion (most notably Ceremonial Burial, World Church or any of the gold-giving beliefs), most players will gravitate to one of the passive spread enhancers and, once they are gone, to one of the active spread enhancers. The passive spread enhancers require the least continuing investment of faith, while the active spread enhancers require continuing investments of faith to purchase Great Prophets and Missionaries.
Great Prophet
If you have chosen Interfaith Dialogue as your founder belief, your first choice of enhancer beliefs should be Holy Order. Because Interfaith Dialogue only provides benefits from manual spread of your religion (using Missionaries and Great Prophets), you do not want your religion to passively spread to become the majority religion in too many foreign cities. Also, you only get the Interfaith Dialogue benefit if there is a majority religion in the other city, so you don't want to spread your religion manually before other religions are well-established. Also, because Great Prophets will convert nearly the entire population of a city to your religion, you should use Missionaries to spread your religion more often than Great Prophets, making Holy Order a more attractive enhancer belief than Messiah (Great Prophets 25% more powerful and earned with 25% less faith). The fact that Missionaries often have little effect on the religious composition of cities with well-entrenched religions makes them particularly attractive for an Interfaith Dialogue/Holy Order strategy, allowing you to generate a constant stream of inexpensive Missionaries who generate science every time they try to convert a foreign city (optimally another religion's holy city, where the Missionary can spread on multiple turns without having to travel to any other cities). For this reason, you would also want to avoid taking the Evangelism reformation belief when pursuing this strategy.
If you intend to pursue a strategy centered on city-state friendships and alliances, combining the Papal Primacy founder belief, the Charitable Missions reformation belief and the Religious Unity enhancer belief can be very compelling.
If you intend to pursue a militarily aggressive strategy, a combination of one of the gold-giving founder beliefs with the Holy Warriors follower belief, the Heathen Conversion reformation belief and the Just War enhancer belief can be powerful.
Finally, Byzantium's ability to select a bonus belief when founding a religion presents an interesting planning opportunity. Although the bonus belief can be any available pantheon, founder, follower or enhancer belief, a powerful approach is to combine two enhancer beliefs -- Itinerant Preachers and Religious Texts -- to generate overwhelming religious pressure, maximizing the value of Ceremonial Burial or one of the gold-giving founder beliefs, such as Tithe or Church Property. Another popular combination is one of the passive spread enhancer beliefs with both Ceremonial Burial and a gold-giving founder belief.
Conclusion
The right combination of founder and enhancer beliefs can be critical to the success of your religion. As with all religious beliefs, which enhancer belief you select should be consistent with, and helpful to, your strategic goals and be reinforced by your other beliefs.