Religion and how do you control it?

[garry619]

Ok, so I usually start with a pagan religion after building a temple to one of the four gods. Great. It starts to spread through my family, so even better. But then a brand new religion just pops up out of nowhere in another city and starts to spread through other families.

How do I stop that happening, or if I can't how do I combat it? I thought I could use the head of my own religion to turn those who follow this new one to the one I want them to follow, but the option to use that character that way always seems to be greyed out for some reason.

It's so annoying!

[CaptainSpacetime]

I think building a disciple lets you purge other religions from a city.

But honestly I've just not even bothered worrying about it. Convert the head of family and once the house converts I think all members kinda passively get pulled in that direction.

For your head of religion to convert people they have to have a good opinion of you, maybe +100 but I'm not sure.

[TheOrangeBox]

Are you playing with The Sacred and The Profane DLC?

[mk11]

You have a few choices.

Just roll with it and handle having multiple religions in your country. If you go with the Tolerance law you get bonus happiness from that and just need to keep all the religious heads reasonably happy.

Establish a state religion of one of the world religions, adopt the Orthodoxy law, use disciples to purge any other religion that appears. Convert family heads to the state religion.

Establish paganism as the state religion. Take Iconography and Polytheism laws. Build shrines everywhere. Iconography stops the spread of other religions but you don't have any way to roll-back previously spread religion so this is a bit suspect unless you got Iconography early from an event. It is also a bit pointless since you have a law that only helps where there are religious buildings and are avoiding a law that helps all cities.

[Twelvefield]

I mean, this is a central question that has come down to us since Caveman Igg made Caveman Ook the Pope of Cavetown. I'm certain generations of imams, priests, rabbis, shamans, and miscellaneous other holy people would agree with you, OP, especially the martyrs.

It's kind of fun to build up an Orthodox religion and see how long it can stand up against the rest of the world, but that kind of thing usually ends up being destructive, bad for business.

[omnius]

I'm learning you don't fret over other religions spreading to your cities, you can actually benefit from multiple religions as they can help citizen happiness and city culture.

[Twelvefield]

It's Not Like Civ™, where founding a religion gives you a raft of exclusive bonuses that the followers do not get. Religion in Ōld World is more nuanced, and more sharing of the bonuses. A downside of having "too much" religion is that you could fracture family opinions into an unmanageable mess. Even so, the bonuses are generally worth the trouble.

[Depaskala]

Just halfway through the tutorial, and confused about one specifc point :

There are only 4 religions in that game ? Like, 4 "real" religions that function like religions and the rest are just "paganism" (as described from the perspective of these 4 religions) ?

That sees a bit limiting, compared to other civ-likes...

[Twelvefield]

There are ways to modify your religion, so there are variations. The religions in Ōld World are all functionally equal (except Paganism), so having more of them doesn't make any difference. They just provide a means to create differing opinions, although you can tailor your religion to provide more bonuses. Everyone who attains that religion gets those bonuses, I can't think of anything that applies to just the founder, like it does in other games. As far as each religion is concerned, it doesn't matter who founds them or where.

Where you squeeze the sweet juice is what you choose to build around those religions. The earlier you start, the more bonus you get. Religious buildings become progressively more powerful and do more to advance your Dynasty. Religious people buff your population, culture, and science. There are religious Laws which are also very powerful.

Having varied religions can increase those bonuses, but it can fracture your Families. Maintaining Orthodoxy keeps everybody who is orthodox happy but makes everybody else unhappy, and it tends to stifle growth if not managed well. Managing religious friction is a constant balance in any game: there are pros and cons to being liberal or conservative in your religious approach.

Paganism is the outlier. It's something you can do at the outset, so you can get religious bonuses faster. Pagan shrines are powerful early-game buildings and can give you a serious boost. Paganism tends to get outperformed by organized religions, but if you push Paganism hard, you can get some really strong early to mid-game buffs. I've never played Pagan to the end, but I know that it's viable.

[Gregorovitch]

I've found the line of least resistance with religion is to leave it be as far as the population is concerned and pass Tolerance Law ASAP. This means that you get a lot of happiness for free and you don't get much trouble from religious leaders. I've found adopting a state religion useful because if you convert all your family heads to it (which is usually relatively easy and cheap) you get some relationship bonuses and no negatives.

State religion also lets you build temples and cathedrals which are very good buildings for culture/science etc. I just adopt the first world religion that comes along, I don't think it matters much which one you pick. You can also often pick up disciples from other world religions from events and such and so build temples and cathedrals other than your own without any problem if Tolerance is in place.

I think the Orthodoxy path has some strong gameplay but seems like a lot more work to implement to me. And requires you to be beastly to people, put them to the rack, burn them at the stake and such

[omnius]

After downplaying religion in my early games I'm learning now to embrace it for helping cities grow and be happy. I do see how the AI's build lots of shrines before they adopt a state religion and then build lots of those buildings as well.

[Twelvefield]

Praise be!