Pick you Holy City

[tombeef]

I had a game where my first city founded Budhism. Later, when I had two cities, that same city also founded Judaism.

 

[cabert]

after all this, i think it's random (maybe with modifiers?)

 

[N3pomuk]

You know I don't recall there ever was a religion founded in the capitol after I founded the second city, other than that it seems pretty random to me... but what do I know I am Human, I need to look at the code to know for shure... ah to have learned python

 

[The Conquerer22]

One way to tell what city will be holy is what is the last city you built?

 

[The Conquerer22]

It's true------------------ Julius Caeser

 

[ChicagoCubs]

My observations have been that it is a combination of lack of a religon and the lowest amount of culture.

Since the newest city tends to have the lowest culture and no religion, then the religion is founded there. My observation has been that a city without a religion is the primary deciding point, then the culture factor is added to the mix.

 

[jayseedubya]

I remember hearing from a reliable source (though I can't remember the source ) that the holy city goes to the most recently founded city. I'm not sure if the holy city needs to have 1 culture (or more) or not, i'm almost positive that holy cities go to the newest city. This comes in handy when you do an early expansion before slowing it down. Founding Taoism, Christianity, Confucianism, and Islam all in one city. Leads to huge culture and HUGE money w/ a few prophets.

 

[omni_paul]

I can guarantee that IF you have a city or cities with no religion, the holy city will be founded there or in one of those.

I don't know what the rule is when all of your cities have religion, but it's not uncommon in that situation for the same city to become a double or even triple holy city. I've never seen four.

In my most recent game, I had 2 cities when I founded Confucianism. Both cities were Hindu already, with my second city being the Hindu Holy City. It also got Confucianism. Then, later when I was one turn away from Taoism, I had seven cities, all of which had at least Hinduism, some also Confucianism. I founded a new city and discovered the religion, of course the holy city was my new city (the only one without religion). I reloaded and waited a turn before founding, my double holy city became a triple.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I just ran a test with Worldbuilder, and can confirm that all of these assumptions are false:

I gave myself an obscene amount of Settlers, then an equally obscene amount of Great Merchants to counter the high mantainence. All Settlers settled on the spot. Every city except two was given 99 population and a free Theatre.

- It is false that the Holy city is the city with the lowest culture, either per-turn or cumulative: Neither of the unedited cities founded a religion.
- It is false that the Holy city will go to a city without a religion: After founding Hinduism, I gave a free Missionary to every city except a few. The Hindu cities still founded religions.
- It is false that the game will avoid double Holy Cities: I actually ended up with two of these.
- It is false that the Holy City is the last one founded: Parsagadae (the second Persian city) founded both Confucianism and Judeaism.

 

[NuWorld]

My vote goes to random. My last game, founded Hinduism in capitol, expanded to 6 cities, found Confucianism in my 2nd city, found Christianity in my 2nd city, found Islam in my 2nd city. All cities were well built, no new or crap ones.

 

[Dairuka]

From my personal experience, the first city you build after your capital is the most likely to get two or more religions in it.

That is why I always put the first city I build in a favorable cottage building spot, {Such as lots of floodplains/grasslands.}

You'll not only make a major "mint" of money from this city at 0% research from the cottages, banks and marketplaces you build there, but you'll also turn this city into a secondary science capital as a result of the cottage money being turned into beakers at 100%.

 

[Older than Dirt]

About 2 months ago I saved a game and ran several reloads and the results indicated strongly that it was entirely random.

 

[MrCynical]

There's still a certain amount of debate on how this works, but I've noticed a few things:

1)If you have your capital, a second city, and no existing religions the holy city will always be your second city. This has been the case in 30 out of 30 games and I now plan based on this assumption.

2)If you have a city with no religion it will be favoured over those that do. I think this is the reason holy cities tend to be the smallest and newest cities, which are most likely to have no existing religion, or very low culture.

3)Religions can be founded in cities which are already the holy city of a different religion, even if there are other cities present, but generally only if the two religions are founded close together.

4)The capital will never found a religion if it hasn't done so before a second city is founded.

All these seem consistent with the preference being first for any city with no religion already, and in the event of all cities having no religion, or all having existing religion putting it in the city with least culture. It is possible the preference for a city with no religion is simply due to the fact a city with no religion is likely to be very culture poor, in which case it may be done entirely by culture. I'll have to run some experiments in worldbuilder to check this though.

 

[The Keeper]

1. It checks for the city(s) with the fewest present religions. The city with the fewest religions present gets to found the new religion.

2. If all cities have 0 religions present, the religion is founded in the newest founded city.

3. If all cities have religions, the city with the fewest present religion founds the new religion.

4. If all cities have the same number of religions, and one of them already has a holy city, then the religion is founded in the city that is already a holy city.

5. If 2 different cities are holy cities and all cities have the same number of religions, it is random between the 2 holy cities.

6. If all cities have the same number of religions and no holy city is present, . . .

It seems like there is a bit of randomization with this one - but I could be wrong on #6

 

[Mewtarthio]

Sorry, Keeper, but my experience with a World Builder test disproves that. Cities without religions were not at all favored above cities with religions.

Why doesn't somebody just open up the Python file and tell us for certain?

 

[Vishaing]

I always assumed that the founding city was whatever city contributed the last point of science (beaker) to the tech. THat's why its generally your youngest city, but I've had it be my capital even after I had an Empire of around ten cities. I noticed that when that happened I only needed around ten more beakers, (my capital produced around 100) to finish the tech. And then bam, my capitol is a holy city, and there was mcuh rejoicing.

Yay.

That's what I've noticed, I mihgt be completely wrong, but it seems to make sense, I think.

 

[sydhe]

On the other hand, I often use great people to found religions, and it never goes in my capital.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OK, 90% of the 'rules' that people are talking about are probably just sampling error.. It happens once and so you assume that's the rule... The fact is random
1. would be easier for them to program than the complex set of rules
2. Would make more sense realistically, since Realism doesn't seem to have any generically agreeable rules.

3. Would make sense with the gameplay concept of religion being something the player deals with rather than totally controls.

 

[mjs0]

My C++ is a little rusty (and obviously the code is not mine so I may be misreading it) but here goes...

Looking in the SDK reveals this routine

CvPlayer::foundReligion

which appears to do the following...

For each of the player's cities 

      Compute the value:
      (10 + populationcount + A random number ) / (religions in city + 1) 
      If this city is the player's capital reduce the value by dividing it by 8.

Next City

Whichever city ends up with the highest value gets the holy city.

Incidentally, a tie is settled by the order in which the cities are searched (presumably order settled) which I guess is why your second city can often end up as holy city for more than one religion.

(Apologies for the ugliest psuedo code in the history of civilization )

Note: The random number is an integer value generated by passing the value FOUND_RELIGION_CITY_RAND from GlobalDefines.xml (which is 10 by default) to an external routine entitled GetSorenRandNum.
I assume it returns a number between 0 (or 1) and the value passed, in this case 10.

 

[InFlux5]

Thanks mjs, very nice post. Makes perfect sense. I knew it wasn't random, but as we can see there is an element of randomness when other factors are equal. This also shows why the test with tons of identical cities showed more randomness than in-game conditions, where that formula will favor poorly-developed cities over established ones.