Pick you Holy City

[MrPaladin]

is there anyway to choose or assume which of your citys will become the 'holy city'

 

[lost_civantares]

The only time you know is when you have 1 city.

It also seems that once you have another city you will never get a religion that bases out of your capital, though I haven't tested that.

 

[Marmoset]

One thing I've noticed is that if most of your cities have a religion (not necessarily as a holy city, just in general), but one or two don't, the holy city for a new religion seems to end up being one of those one or two cities without a religion.

 

[King Flevance]

These numbers are not in any way affiliated with any coding or anything. Just what I have noticed. If I have no cities with religion, then I found one the holy city comes to be one of the last 3 cities I have placed.

I always look at the chances to be like this in this situation.

City 1 (Capitol) - 0%
City 2 - 0%
City 3 - 10%
City 4 - 10%
City 5 - 20%
City 6 - 60%

But like I said, this only based off what I have seen in my games. It also seems like distance to capitol comes in to play at times where say city 3 is the furthest away, and still pretty new (like 3-6 were founded pretty close to the same time and same populations roughly give or take 1 pop.) then 3 will take the city.

I am not always right but I usually have a good idea on which of my cities will become the holy city.

 

[Stylesjl]

Well all i know is that cities without existing religion always become priortised to become a holy city

 

[kamigawan]

I don't know the exact formula, but in my experience, the city currently generating the least amount of culture per turn (CPT) is the city most likely to be the holy city. This usually (but not always) corresponds to the most recently founded or captured city. Which helps early on, because usually you want your new cities to start getting the +5 CPT from founding the religion. This also usually not your capital if you have more than one city, since your palace has been generating 2 CPT since the beginning. In situations where I built wonders in my other cities, a previous holy city also became a holy city for a second religion.

Correct me if i'm wrong there.

 

[the oob]

Someone needs to test this in worldbuilder: set up a civ with several cities, then give it a religion tech, and see which city becomes the holy city. Reload and try again several times for a good sample size. All the different theories given here could be tested, for instance Kamaigawans culture theory could be tested by giving every city except one a lot of culture.

I'd do it myself, but I'm more of an 'idea man'

 

[vinstafresh]

I'd do it myself, but I'm more of an 'idea man'

Nice one!

 

[cabert]

I'm not the one for the testing either, since I won't be playing for some time, but Kamigawan's theory meets my experience.
I wonder if there is a random part or not ? could you choose the city you want by placing artist specialists in the other cities?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm pretty sure its totally random, no point for a complex formula.

 

[Azash]

The holy city is always your newest city, I think.

 

[Kerrang]

I'm pretty sure its totally random, no point for a complex formula.

I don't think it is random, it seems to be the newest city, or the city with the lowest culture. When I was still new to Civ4 I was playing a Chieftan game on an island map where I only had 3 or 4 cities for the first few thousand years. I ended up founding 4 religions, the first one went to the second city I founded, and the others were all in the third city. I have never seen a religion founded in a capital if there is another city available, and you would expect to see that happen if the placement was random.

 

[N3pomuk]

nah I don't think it has anything to do with culture, Ive had islam go to my highest cultured city in the last 2 games....
to answer your question: you can't pick your holy city, but you can pick your nose

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't think it is random, it seems to be the newest city, or the city with the lowest culture. When I was still new to Civ4 I was playing a Chieftan game on an island map where I only had 3 or 4 cities for the first few thousand years. I ended up founding 4 religions, the first one went to the second city I founded, and the others were all in the third city. I have never seen a religion founded in a capital if there is another city available, and you would expect to see that happen if the placement was random.

Actually if the city placement is random you shouldn't expect to see anything in particular. Unless you do a Very large number of games and take detailed notes (I have seen it appear in the capital with two cities). The fact is the human brain is not naturally equiped to deal with random events (we are equipped to make guesses at rules governing those events, and that is what is happening here)

The best argument I can see for this being the way it is, unless someone wants to test it out in large scale is that there is no reason for them to put in any rule more complicated than 'select random city'... that means it probably WON'T be the capital (which is only one), or one of your more developed cities It probably Won't be an existing Holy city, because you usually have more non Holy Cities.

 

[RoddyVR]

every theory propposed here was broken by the game i played last weeek.

was playing as russians.

moscow founded hindu while i only had one city.
st peter's founded budhism when i had only two cities.
then i had another 1, 2 and more cities when the next religeons were founded, but they ALL went to st peters.
so i had 4 religeons based in st peters, even though i had both founded and conquered cities since then,
and i had other cities that had way less of EVEYRTHING then st petersburg.
less culture, check. it was getting mad culture from being so holy, as i didnt have a state religeon
less population, check. it wasnt huge (i think it stopped at 9 or 10) but it was definetly larger then the newer cities.
less religeons, check. had no religoen, and one religeon cities when islam was founded, it still went to st peters which had 4 religeons (being holy city for 3 of them).


so its random.
there are probably some things that scew that randomness. but they're not rules, just modifiers to the randomness.

 

[DarkFyre99]

The only time you know is when you have 1 city.

It also seems that once you have another city you will never get a religion that bases out of your capital, though I haven't tested that.

I once had the Islamic holy site appear in my capital. I'm pretty sure that it's completely random.

 

[Urederra]

nah I don't think it has anything to do with culture, Ive had islam go to my highest cultured city in the last 2 games....
to answer your question: you can't pick your holy city, but you can pick your nose

Me too... I had Islam on my second city, which it also had confucianism
I managed to pick the three ancient religions playing as Asoka (religious and starting with Misticism) I founded Biddhism and Hiduism in Delhi and confuncianism in the second city (forgot the name ) Latter on, I founded Islamism and it went to the city that founded counfucianism.

It was in Noble, BTW.

EDIT: Ummm... DarkFyre99 had similar experience, maybe Islamism follows a different rule

 

[bobtheflob]

I'm positive that newer cities are more likely to get found a new religion. Although there have been exceptions, I'd say 3/4 of the time my most recently founded city becomes the holy city. Since in most of my games I found a religion (usually Judiasm, Confucianism, or Christianity), I've had a pretty large data set to work with.

RoddyVR, it sounds like your game was an exception, but it was just one game. Also, you should play on a higher difficulty level if you're founding that many religions.

 

[Eternalsteelfan]

I'm not certain about theories and such but whenever I found a religion it's always in my worst or one of my worst cities. Seriously, any game I set up an early "colony" city, say, in the north pole territory to pipeline some fur it's a fact that that city with one population that's going to grow to two in sixty turns is going to be the holy city.

 

[Ranos]

From what I have noticed, it goes like this:

1 city = religion founded in that city.
2 cities = religion founded in second city.
3+ cities = religion founded in newest city with at least 1 culture.

This is from playing a single game in which I was trying for a cultural victory. When I started the game, I thought a religion would be founded in the newest city. When that didn't happen after I founded my third city, I wanted to find out why. I restarted the game multiple times and my above conclusion is what I came up with.

I might try to test this after I finish my current game, it shold be easy enough.