Trying to Understand Religion

[CharlieM]

See screenshot. I am Aztecs. Having taken over the entire continent where I started, I've now sent an Apostle of my Jewish religion across the seas. The Apostle is highlighted. Spain controls Cairo and I have open borders with Spain. But for some reason there is a dark black line around Cairo. Why?

The bigger question, though, is -- what do those purple circles around the other cities tell me?

 

[callan]

The black line around Cairo indicates it's cultural border. The fact that it is black an not filled in colour means that city has no dominant religion. The other cities are the colour of their dominant religion. If you look closely you will see it matches the colour of the religions icon.

 

[CharlieM]

The black line around Cairo indicates it's cultural border. The fact that it is black an not filled in colour means that city has no dominant religion. The other cities are the colour of their dominant religion. If you look closely you will see it matches the colour of the religions icon.

And why is the circle around the other cities 'filled in' to different degrees for different cities? What is that circle telling me?

 

[Heklios]

It represents the proportion of Citizens that are converted to a certain religion.

One of your cities has 3 citizens and they all follow the religion colored in purple so the circle is filled entirely in purple. Another cities has 6 "purple followers" out of its 7 citizens so six sevenths of the circle is colored purple.

If multiple religions were present in the same city the circle would be colored in multiple colors all according to their ratio to the total amount of citizens.

 

[BlueGoop]

I haven't read the manual, so these are just working theories at this point. The circle displays how dominant the religion is; sort of like a pie chart. It's just a graphical display of the religious makeup of the city. In my own city, I've sent a missionary to a half filled circle city, and the circle's coloring went up just a bit. There are also numbers to the side of the circle which tells the numerical religious makeup within the city. There's a pulse within the circle seeming to represent the religious pressure that the city exports. Next to one of the numbers on the side might be a single up arrow or a double arrow (haven't seen a triple yet). This seems to indicate the religious pressure from surrounding cities. It seems hard/impossible to convert a city to your own religion deep inside another's territory when it's surrounded by cities exporting their own religious pressure.

Inquisition seems to matter. You can clean all other religions from your cities which seems to have an affect on the strength of its religious pressure that it exports.

 

[CharlieM]

It's a little hard to play a game when you don't know the rules of the game. We should not have to be guessing or theorizing about what these things mean.

 

[callan]

There's an entire manual built into the game called the Civilopedia. It's not great at explaining advanced mechanics but if you can't pick up Religion (one of the simpler ones) then it should do you just fine.

 

[CharlieM]

Callan, I've read the Manual and the Civilopedia from front to back. Do you see in either of those places a specific reference to what these circles represent on my map, and precisely what they mean? I do not.

Religion is a "simpler" victory? That's a debatable statement. Military might and strategies are quite clear in the game. Religious pressure and the precise results of various religious actions are NOT clear from the manual or the Civilopedia. So in what sense is religion a "simpler" system?

 

[Volaspiran]

So I was wondering what does the arrow pointing icons mean next to the religion? Sometimes it is on one religion, sometimes it's on another religion.

 

[Volaspiran]

I haven't read the manual, so these are just working theories at this point. The circle displays how dominant the religion is; sort of like a pie chart. It's just a graphical display of the religious makeup of the city. In my own city, I've sent a missionary to a half filled circle city, and the circle's coloring went up just a bit. There are also numbers to the side of the circle which tells the numerical religious makeup within the city. There's a pulse within the circle seeming to represent the religious pressure that the city exports. Next to one of the numbers on the side might be a single up arrow or a double arrow (haven't seen a triple yet). This seems to indicate the religious pressure from surrounding cities. It seems hard/impossible to convert a city to your own religion deep inside another's territory when it's surrounded by cities exporting their own religious pressure.

Inquisition seems to matter. You can clean all other religions from your cities which seems to have an affect on the strength of its religious pressure that it exports.

I still don't quiete get the hang of the single or double arrow next to the numbers of a religion, if there is arrow does it mean that the numbers of your own religion will decrease if u do nothing?

 

[Futumch]

So I was wondering what does the arrow pointing icons mean next to the religion? Sometimes it is on one religion, sometimes it's on another religion.

The arrows indicate the relative strength of the religions that are influencing that particular city. It is related to spread strength and distance to the closest holy city. One of the upgrades for your religion is to increase relative strength, another is to increase the range of spread by 30%.

Trade routes seem to affect religious spread too. I have to do more gameplay tests on this aspect though.

I name my religions after diseases, is that wrong? Cancer = crab icon, Worms = aquarius icon...

 

[Volaspiran]

The arrows indicate the relative strength of the religions that are influencing that particular city. It is related to spread strength and distance to the closest holy city. One of the upgrades for your religion is to increase relative strength, another is to increase the range of spread by 30%.

Trade routes seem to affect religious spread too. I have to do more gameplay tests on this aspect though.

I name my religions after diseases, is that wrong? Cancer = crab icon, Worms = aquarius icon...

thanks futumch! so how in the game can i achieve this upgrade? and range spread?

 

[Futumch]

When you make Apostles, there's an ability they have called Evangelize Belief, which allows you to choose another innate feature of your religion (such as the range / power of your spread). You have to have two charges of spread left on your Apostle, and it's been dodgy for me so I tend to just use a new apostle and Evangelise right away.
I think you get two opportunities to Evangelise your religion only, which gives you five sort of core bonuses for having a religion. One from your Pantheon, two when you start the religion and one each from evangelizing.
I don't think it is possible to have the boosted strength AND boosted range for your religion's influence though, but I could be wrong, as I have never chosen either one as one of my first two beliefs. I tend to favour production or science bonuses, myself, but the ignore terrain for your religious units boost is really good.

 

[ZeOldOne]

Hi there, I thought I understood religion quite well so far but here is what's happening in my current playthrough :
1) My capital city built an early holy site.
2) My capital city is converted to a religion by one of my oponents.
3) I found a religion and my capital city becomes the Holy City of that religion of mine.
Now any religious unit I produce spreads my oponent's religion instead of mine coz it's its main religion, and since none of my cities have my religion it seems i'm stuck with my oponent's religion for ever....
afayk is that possible or would it be a bug ? ty for your thoughts !

 

[Futumch]

Hi there, I thought I understood religion quite well so far but here is what's happening in my current playthrough :
1) My capital city built an early holy site.
2) My capital city is converted to a religion by one of my oponents.
3) I found a religion and my capital city becomes the Holy City of that religion of mine.
Now any religious unit I produce spreads my oponent's religion instead of mine coz it's its main religion, and since none of my cities have my religion it seems i'm stuck with my oponent's religion for ever....
afayk is that possible or would it be a bug ? ty for your thoughts !

There was a thread about something very similar to this last week, and a very elegant solution (I thought) was to build the wonder Mahabodi Temple, which gives you two apostles of your religion. Use these to convert your cities back and then start to catch up.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/resurrecting-my-religion.608388/

 

[Halcyan2]

The arrows indicate the relative strength of the religions that are influencing that particular city. It is related to spread strength and distance to the closest holy city. One of the upgrades for your religion is to increase relative strength, another is to increase the range of spread by 30%.

That's what I thought but sometimes those arrows for a given religion persist even after there are no longer cities of that religion around any more.

 

[ZeOldOne]

Ok I see tyvm for your help Futumch, so this kind of thing may happen.
Though it really seems odd that a city founding a religion while already having one does not completly convert to the new one since Holy Cities are supposed to be convertion-proof (or at least it should produce units from the founded religion imo).
Good game to you all !