what city becomes holy city?

[blackrabbit]

Started a new game this weekend and got curious. When you found a religion and you have say 3 or 4 cities, what determines which city gets it?

I searched the forums but didn't see anything about it unless i'm blind (could be lol). I ask because my strategy is to make a bee line for the great wall ( I play BTS) to keep out the barbarians and then go after christianity since the other early ones are usually gone by then. So by the time I found christianity I have 3 to 5 cities already.

Is there some critieria that determines what city gets the holy city once I found the religion? Is this criteria something I could manipulate so I can help "choose" my holy city?

Thanks in advance.

 

[General Ege]

in my games, it is typically founded in the newest city founded of the founding civ. Therefore, if you just founded a city, and it doesnt have a religion yet, the new religion is founded in said city. If all cities have a religion, im not sure how the holy city is determined

 

[ori]

it is a random choice where the city with the largest population and the least number of religions that is not your capital is preferred

 

[blackrabbit]

You might be right about the newest city. I thought I noticed that happeneing but figured it was my imagination. I'll check that tonight. i like to plan my cities and what wonders and stuff I build in them and knowing where my religion is going to sit would be very helpful. Thanks.

*** maybe i spoke too soon, maybe the largest city without a religion is correct. Thanks guys

 

[nbcman]

Normally it is the largest non-capital city with the fewest religions in it. So if you have no religions in your empire it will probably be the largest city other than your capital.
If you have cities without a religion, it will probably found in the largest city without a religion.
If you found a religion and the only city that you have is your capital, the religion will found there.

Edit: Like everyone else said.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

The way it works is that every city gets a score and the city with the highest score gets the holy city.

Each city gets a base of 10.
Each pop point adds 1.
A random number from 1-10 gets added.
Each religion already in the city divides by 2
The cap gets divided by 8.

 

[Willem]

I ask because my strategy is to make a bee line for the great wall ( I play BTS) to keep out the barbarians and then go after christianity since the other early ones are usually gone by then.

You'd probably be better off going for Code of Laws and getting Confucianism. It's a shorter tech path than Theology and the Courthouse would be very useful to your civ. Plus it opens up Caste Sytem which can give your empire another boost. You also need Writing which allows for another useful building.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The way it works is that every city gets a score and the city with the highest score gets the holy city.

Each city gets a base of 10.
Each pop point adds 1.
A random number from 1-10 gets added.
Each religion already in the city divides by 2
The cap gets divided by 8.

Out of interest's sake, do you know if the the division operations are integer division?

 

[magpie_robert]

I've found that if you found a second religion having already spread your first one to all your cities, the same city will be the holy city for both. But if you have missed one city out, that city will always found the new religion.

I have sometimes delayed building a new city until the religion is founded or slowed/changed the research to give time to spread the missionaries around. It's much better to have the religious shrines together so that the effects of banks and Wall Street are maximised.

Once (playing as Ghandi I think), I managed to found Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all in my second city.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I've found that if you found a second religion having already spread your first one to all your cities, the same city will be the holy city for both. But if you have missed one city out, that city will always found the new religion.

I have sometimes delayed building a new city until the religion is founded or slowed/changed the research to give time to spread the missionaries around. It's much better to have the religious shrines together so that the effects of banks and Wall Street are maximised.

Once (playing as Ghandi I think), I managed to found Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all in my second city.

This won't always work. There is a very strong bias against your capital though, so your last example where you got three religions in your second city is pretty typical. See AutomatedTeller's post above for the exact details. If you had 4 cities, all with 1 religion and the holy city was not the capital (eg. maybe your second city) then all three of your cities that aren't the capital will have an equal chance of getting the next religion.

 

[DanF5771]

The way it works is that every city gets a score and the city with the highest score gets the holy city.

Each city gets a base of 10.
Each pop point adds 1.
A random number from 1-10 gets added.
Each religion already in the city divides by 2
The cap gets divided by 8.

Just some minor corrections :
A random number from 0-9 gets added.
The value is divided by (1+the number of religions present)

All integer divisions.

 

[Willem]

I've found that if you found a second religion having already spread your first one to all your cities, the same city will be the holy city for both.

No, it doesn't work that way. That very seldom happens in fact. I've played plenty of games and I've rarely had one city found more than one religion. If you have two or more religions in the same city it's just a stroke of luck.

Once (playing as Ghandi I think), I managed to found Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all in my second city.

Now that's extremely good luck. You'll probably never have that happen again.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Now that's extremely good luck. You'll probably never have that happen again.

It's not extremely good luck necessarily. Keep in mind the huge bias against the capital.

If he only has 2 cities, all the religions will probably be founded in the non-capital even if the capital has no religion.

Capital if size 6 will get a score between 2 and 3.

2nd city if size 2 will get a score at least 4 even if it already has 2 religions in it.

If there is a third city it's still not all that unlikely, especially if you spread the religion to the third city each time and keep the 3rd city's population low and your 2nd city's population high.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

If you consider having a dual-shrine city to be very rare...how would you describe this?



(Some more good discussion with religions can be found here. While it may take some luck, creating multi-shrine cities is possible using various methods of population and religion control!)

 

[Tibur753]

If you consider having a dual-shrine city to be very rare...how would you describe this?

That was because he only had 1 city until 730AD(When he founded Mecca). A new palace was built there.

But still, dual shrine cities are relatively common when the civ has only a few cities.