What determines Holy City?

Luckmann

Luckmann

Esusian Epicure
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
Messages
527
Location
The Towers of Amur.
Alright, I'm sure this is a story a lot have heard. I was out exploring, merrily, and I found a thingomajig that teleported me across the entire continent. About 2 turns later, I find a Settler! How nice! But it's so far away. :(

But I find a killer spot to put it on, and think that "This will never make it home, anyway. And if the city dies, it dies.". About 50-or-so turns later, at the very least I found Fellowship of Leaves - and it ends up in that ungodly, infested hellhole of "Lone Star" out in the middle of nowhere, between two or three seperate camps of barbarians, with one half covered in jungle and the other covered in forest. Out of the 4 different cities I have at the time, this was my least favoured one, completely cut off from all the others.

So my question is thus: "What determines the city which becomes Holy City, when you found a religion?". I've tried reloading several times, and I've tried going several turns back and forth in research completion from that save - it is clear that it ends up in "Lone Star" every single time. :sad:
 
I'm pretty sure that religions can be founded in your capital even if you have other cities, but it is about 8 times less likely.
 
There is a random factor that can throw this off, but the base function is:

Your capital only gets to be the holy city if you have absolutely no other cities.

If you have cities aside from your capital, then...

If one city has fewer religions than all the rest, that city gets to be the Holy City.

If more than one city is tied for "fewest religions", then the Holy City goes to the oldest city you have in that category that isn't your capital. If you capture an AI Civ's capital, then that will almost certainly be the Holy City as long as no other city of yours has fewer religions.

If cities are about the same age, then CivIV tries to figure out which is the "best" city based Wonders and possibly other buildings. If one city has lots of Wonders, then it will appear "older" for the purposes of determining Holy City status.

That means if you want to have multiple Shrines in a single city, then you'll have to spread extra religions to the cities that you don't want to be the Holy City so that the target city is tied with all the other cities or (even better) has fewer religions than the rest.
 
I don't think that the city's age is actually taken into account, but the population is and typically older cities are larger. One time when I was cheating and made my capital have 999 population I managed to found religions there after founding a few other cities.
 
My expirence is different. In BtS, it has almost always been the last city I've built. Somehow I've been having the feeling that it's the city that gives the last breaker to the tech that pops the religion. I've been able to alter this somehow by lowering the research slider and give the city I want it in scientists or by adjusting the commerce output in the cities. If I have many cities, it's quite hard to calculate this anyway, but with 3-5, it should be possible. No gurantees though, as I haven't tested this properly (haven't played any Civs that have obvious religious synergies for a while).
 
I'm sure a lot of you know this, but I'll say it anyway. In FfH2 it's possible to get a Disciple of a religion before that religion is researched. From any of the lairs.

If you get one before the religion is founded, you can pick and choose where to found it. The mechanics are really strange, when you think about it. Why would a major religion form in the backwaters of nowhere? Why always where there are no other religion present? Bah, I say! Bah! :crazyeye:
 
Jesus was born in a stable, probably what would be classified as in "nowhere" ;) IMHO, I don't find the mechanics strange. In fact, I found it more strange that you can actually research a religion, but that's how it has to be make the game work as a game. And a religion is not major untill it's been spread to many places :)

It can though feel strange with the OO holy city in a dwarfen hill city, hehe
 
PanzerWolf said:
Jesus was born in a stable, probably what would be classified as in "nowhere" ;) IMHO, I don't find the mechanics strange. In fact, I found it more strange that you can actually research a religion, but that's how it has to be make the game work as a game. And a religion is not major untill it's been spread to many places :)

It can though feel strange with the OO holy city in a dwarfen hill city, hehe
Click to expand...
Yes, but the Christian holy city is Jerusalem (or, arguably by some, Rome), not Nazareth. Nor was Mecca a backwater town by the standards of it's time and place at the birth of Muhammad - as far as I know. Nor was Nazareth, if you argue that it's about BIRTH city in Civ4/FfH2, and not Holy City.
 
Thanks popejubal! That bit about it being the city with least religions is a great stuff!
It makes sense that it's usually the last city you founded, since it usually doesn't have religions yet.

To clarify: if the city with the least religions is my capital it still won't be picked?

Or will it be the biggest city out of all the ones with the smallest number of religions, including my capital, as per MagisterCultuum?
 
I am convinced it is based upon the beaker that is used to discover the tech. I say this, because when I have the Great Library with great sages, 9/10 times, the holy city is founded there. If I found more religions, they all usually end up there.

PanzerWolf said:
Somehow I've been having the feeling that it's the city that gives the last breaker to the tech that pops the religion.
Click to expand...

exactly. 99% sure this is the case.
 
It's just that pobejubal said "the base function is", so I thought he'd seen the exact code...
If he hasn't, I 'd love to hear from someone who has.
 
The code in the base game does this:

each city gets 10 points
every population point adds 1 point
a random number of 0-9 points is added
the whole is divided by (1+(number of religions present in the city)+8(if the city is the capital))

the city with the highest number of points is the holy city.
Age does play a role in that the game checks for the first city with the highest number of points and goes through the list by ID, i.e. the oldest city wins a tie :)
 
ori said:
The code in the base game does this:

each city gets 10 points
every population point adds 1 point
a random number of 0-9 points is added
the whole is divided by (1+(number of religions present in the city)+8(if the city is the capital))

the city with the highest number of points is the holy city.
Age does play a role in that the game checks for the first city with the highest number of points and goes through the list by ID, i.e. the oldest city wins a tie :)
Click to expand...


And I just don't believe this. I've founded 3 religions in one city last game, and that was the city with the Great Library + many great sages. It was probably producing 90% if not more of my science. Right now, the AI in FFH doesn't research religions it is not interested in, so there is ample opportunity to found more than one religion.

I've had the same thing happen in my capital, if my capital had the great library.

The above is what is stated in one of the links, I am just not sure what they have to back that up.
 
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