Strongest to weakest religion?

[Natz]

Whats the strongest religion in your opinion?

[VipreRX]

They're all equally worthless. You can paint the map as any one of them so all are equally irrelevant.

Satanism may likely actually be the most mechanically powerful.

[Feynrik]

The religion is always tied to the moral authority thus makes them equally bad at low authority and equally strong when reformed and high authority. Low authority for Christians are bad as due to many heretics like the Cathar .
Why satanism is mechanically strongest is that when you successfully breed a spawn from devil it gets incredible stats for like 40 martial and 300 personal combat but still have all kinds of health issues that would kill the most strongest viking to their bones.
Also satanism is not so much one religion as also a sinful Muslim can join.

[VipreRX]

A Muslim can convert to Christianity too, still a religion.

[Merkatz]

Jainism and Buddhism. They have no heresies or demonic orders but access to monastic orders.

This means you can play with 0% moral authority, not worry about heretics and reliably convert counties with your monastic order. Jainism is absurdly stable and Buddhism learning bonuses + learning focused leader = spectacular tech advancement.

[Karlington]

Catholicism. A single Crusade can give you over 100K gold.

[Azunai]

catholicism has by far the most unique features. their crusades are somewhat OP nowadays, they have access to almost all societies (except warrior lodges) and they get 5 different holy orders, so no matter how deep they fall, there's always a chance for a comeback thanks to magic troops from thin air.

over time i've grown quite fond of muslim religions for the purpose of conquest. i've used shia or sunni for various conquest related achievements. the kingdom level invasion CB is their most valuable feature. once you get your realm going, you can conquer multiple kingdoms per generation.

refomed pagans can also be cool since you can customize them to some extent. some of them also have cool features in their unreformed base version (germanic prepared invasions for example)

the others are mostly just suitable for RP and don't really give noteworthy power advantages.

[Malus]

There is no single best religion for everything, some are betters at certain things than others, but there are religions that get surpassed in all ways by different religions.

1.)Best religion for gold income as liege : sunni
Due to the additional tax from holdings in counties without Muslim religion. All holders of holdings do not have to be Muslim for this tax to apply the top ruler being it is enghout.

Also has access to the decadence mechanic which can also increase demesne income with tribal or iqta governments.

Better than other Muslim religions due to access to the ashari and mutazili traits. Access to assassins is not all that important if you have access to different societies.

It is also better than pagan religion reformed with religious tax because pagans cant tax other pagans, and you should try to have most of your realm be pagan due to increased stats and the defensive bonus from unyielding.

2.) best war time religion

Reformed aztek with : unyielding, invaders, haruscripcy (leadership doesn't really matter, maybe temporal for that crown?)

It has the highest combat bonuses you can get from a religion.

+80% morale and +80% defense for all units in friendly territory of your religion and +10% attack, +10/+20% morale from haruscripcy sacrifice, +30% morale from mass sacrifice for all owned units.

3.) best religion for dedicated commanders and Marshalls

African / reformed African

Africans are able to equip fetishes, giving up to +6 martial, but has a chance to get -1 martial due to choosing wrong patron diety

Due to a bug in the current version, even inactive bloodlines give leadership bonuses

4.) best religion for gold income for your vassals

A.) if they have iqta or tribal government, sunni or yazidi

B.) reformed African

With peaceful, astrology, stability, autonomous.

Peaceful makes vassals faction less, get more piety, and revolt less overall.

Astrology gives random bonus and negative stats and randomizes personalities.

With stability there is synergy to read the stars that heir was born under, giving larger health and bonus random stats.

Autonomous for African gives +2 Stewardship to all followers.

1 in 6 chance to get +2 Stewardship from patron diety.

5.) best religion to get most levy

A.) Reformed African : unyielding, stability, meritocracy, (leadership)

Meliorism can increase education

B.) reformed African : unyielding, stability, astrology, (leadership)

Read stars under which heirs are Born increases stats.

Astrology randomly increases stats based on day of birth.

[Malus]

6.) best chancellor

A.) Reformed romuva : peaceful, stability, meritocracy, autonomous

Stability + meritocracy can increase education and base stats by inspiring meliorism.

B.) Reformed romuva : peaceful, stability, astrology , autonomous

Astrology gives bonus and Malus stats based on when was thst guy born.

Stability makes synergy in reading the stars heir is born under.
===
Romuva with autonomous reformation has +2 to Diplomacy

Also romuva patron dieties

1/4 chance for +2 Diplomacy and 1/4 chance for -1 Diplomacy

Romuva has better patron dieties than Slavic.

7.) best spymaster

A.) Reformed suemenusko : peaceful, stability, meritocracy, autonomous

Stability + meritocracy can increase education and base stats by inspiring meliorism.

B.) Reformed suemenusko : peaceful, stability, astrology , autonomous

Astrology gives bonus and Malus stats based on when was that guy born.

Stability makes synergy in reading the stars heir is born under.

Suemenusko with autonomous reformation has +2 to intrigue.

C.) reformed/bon

1/6 chance to have +3 intrigue from patron diety


8.) best religion for lord spiritual

A.) Theradava Buddhism

Buddhism gives +4 learning.
Theradava gives +1 learning.

B.) sunni

Mutazilite gives +5 learning

C.) reformed bon with peaceful, monastic, stability, autonomous

Autonomous bon gives +2 learning
Monastic gives +2 learning
Stability makes inspiring meliorism possible

D. ) reformed bon with peaceful, monastic, astrology, autonomous

Astrology gives stats based on day of birth.

With absolute minmaxing, where you get to play as the future lord spiritual you can get mutazilite and theredava traits as bon if you leave the event window open before converting to another religion.

[Karlington]

Originally posted by Christmas Potajto:

Better than other Muslim religions due to access to the ashari and mutazili traits. Access to assassins is not all thwt important if you have access to different societies.

I'd highly recommend the Yazidi faith. It's the only religion that allows you to be a secular head of religion (the Yazidi Sheikh, basically the Yazidi "Caliph") while being able to excommunicate.

So if the game generates a low Stewardship mayor in that major cash cow city in your capital county, you can just excommunicate, imprison, and execute to get a new one. It's an amazingly overpowered mechanic. :)

Qarmatians are also good since they allow you to raid, which is one of the major cash cows in the game as well. :)

[Kiethoo]

Waldenstien....

[Malus]

My chrome tab closed itself for no reason again so i have to rewrite my comment again x_x

Originally posted by Karlshammar:

I'd highly recommend the Yazidi faith. It's the only religion that allows you to be a secular head of religion (the Yazidi Sheikh, basically the Yazidi "Caliph") while being able to excommunicate.

So if the game generates a low Stewardship mayor in that major cash cow city in your capital county, you can just excommunicate, imprison, and execute to get a new one. It's an amazingly overpowered mechanic. :)

Qarmatians are also good since they allow you to raid, which is one of the major cash cows in the game as well. :)

I forgot that yazidi exists and you have a good point with the excommunication and replacing of vassals, but i would probably still choose to have my city holders be of reformed African so they have 1/6 chance for +2 Stewardship from patron diety, 3/12 chance for +1 Stewardship from astrology and guaranteed +2 from autonomous.
There is also a slight chance they create fetishes, or can at least equip them if you gift them to them, for additional +1 Stewardship.

You can forsake the +2 bonus from autonomous to get hierocratic to get the option to personaly excommunicate your vassals at will at the cost of piety. Reformed African is better in this regard, as you get +0.583 Stewardship on average, and you can get the infidel tax for all infidel holdings by being a sunny / shia / yazidi yourself

Excommunicating your vassals is quite tedious and time taking, if youre running a no pause game it might be hard to do anything besides replacing your vassals when youre a sufficient size. It also eats up your piety that could be spent on retinue maintenance.

But you definitely convinced me that it is better to have Yazidis instead of Sunnys be the holders of my castles and temples.

Also i tend to put people with high Stewardship as the heirs to my vassal city holders, i try to not let these chars randomly generate for me, i breed them at my court.

Also what is "secular" head of religion? And what is the difference between secular head and a different/normal? Head of religion?

I made slight edits to my previous comments to fix typos and inclide yazidi as a good religion for iqtas and tribals

Originally posted by Kiethoo:

Waldenstien....

Why waldesian? It doesn't seem to have any bonuses compared to other Christians

[legeis90]

Reformed Hellenic, But it's a pain to reform and by the time you do you could have already painted the map as a christian or reformed germanic or something easier to get!

Edit: I realize I probably need to explain more.

By Default you get
Astrology + Haruspicy + Can disqualify heirs by granting them temples.

Combine that with their "civilized" doctrine and you aditionally get
no penalties for vassal levies + Syncretism + Meritocracy (so heir designation)

Combine that with your choice of a 2nd doctorine + Nature + Leadership = one heck of a religion

Now you don't get concubines but that's a sacrifice worth making I think!

[Mr_Faorry]

I can't say any one religion is the best but the top tier ones are
-Reformed Pagan for obvious reasons
-Catholic since Crusades give insane rewards
-yazidi since the religious head is secular AND can excommunicate

[Karlington]

Originally posted by Christmas Potajto:

Also what is "secular" head of religion? And what is the difference between secular head and a different/normal? Head of religion?

Secular heads of religion are non-theocratic ones, for example Muslim and pagan temporal ones.

Non-secular heads of religion are the theocratic ones, such as the Pope and Patriarchs.

In other words, secular heads of religion are those based on titles that can be and are intended to be held by players without the use of exploits and/or suffering from various penalties or odd game behaviors. :)

This makes the Yazidi Sheikh unique since he is, to the best of my knowledge, the only secular head of religion with the ability to excommunicate.

[Malus]

Originally posted by Karlshammar:

Secular heads of religion are non-theocratic ones, for example Muslim and pagan temporal ones.

Non-secular heads of religion are the theocratic ones, such as the Pope and Patriarchs.

In other words, secular heads of religion are those based on titles that can be and are intended to be held by players without the use of exploits and/or suffering from various penalties or odd game behaviors. :)

From minmax perspective, it being secular is kinda pointless as all religious heads with the exceptions of hellenic and orthodox can be acquired quite easly. But it might be a good idea to keep referring to them as secular in case these bugs/exploits get "fixed" as to make old guides useful in the future.