This page covers what a State Religion costs and gives, and how families and characters pick a faith. How a religion reaches a city is on Religious Spread.
State Religion
You start with no State Religion. You can adopt any religion that at least one of your cities follows. A pagan religion needs the Divine Rule law first, and it stops being your State Religion if that law ends.
- Cost. 400 Civics, plus 200 for every time you have adopted a State Religion before (one count for all religions), rounded down to 10 and never more than 2,000.
- Cities. +1 Happiness in each of your cities that follows it. A world religion (and Hinduism) also carries a Civics upkeep while it is your State Religion; pagan ones do not.
- Characters. +20 opinion from characters who follow it, −20 from characters of any other religion (−10 if theirs is pagan), doubled for a religion's head. Other nations also judge you by your State Religion.
- Disciples and theologies. Your cities that follow it can train its Disciples, and only a Disciple of your State Religion can establish a Theology (paying its Civics cost and using up the Disciple). What Disciples do is on Religious Spread.
Family conversion
From turn 10, each family reconsiders its religion once every 4 turns. Each religion is scored with the points below and needs more than 100 to count. The highest score wins; there is no randomness. The +50 for the family's current religion keeps families from switching every cycle.
| Points | Source |
|---|---|
| +100 | Each family character following that religion |
| +100 | Family head (on top of the +100 above, so +200 in all) |
| +20 | Council member (stacks with the job bonus, so +40 for a council job) |
| +20 | Has a job: Governor, General, Agent or council |
| +50 | The religion the family already follows |
Character conversion
Who rolls
- Your own leader never converts on their own.
- Anyone who already has a religion is skipped.
- Religion heads, characters with the No Religion trait, and anyone under 10 cannot convert.
- A non-leader with a locked-religion trait can only convert to that religion.
- No one converts before turn 10.
- Each turn, each eligible character has a 10% chance to try.
- An adult who passes the 10% roll goes ahead. A child under 18 goes ahead with a chance of 1 in (19 − age): 1 in 9 at age 10, 1 in 2 at 17.
How a religion is picked
The game rolls a threshold from 1 to 3. A religion is a candidate only if its city points plus role points are more than the threshold. The candidate with the highest final score wins.
City points with a family
For family characters, only the family's own cities count.
| +4 | Family seat is the holy city of this religion |
| +3 | Any other family city is the holy city |
| +2 | Religion present in family seat (not as holy city) |
| +1 | Religion present in other family cities (not as holy city) |
City points with no family
For characters without a family, such as your first ruler or foreigners, all your cities count, for fewer points.
| +2 | Player owns the holy city of this religion |
| +1 | Religion present in any other player city |
City points for a tribe character
Tribe characters count the tribe's cities and sites.
| +4 | Tribe city is the holy city |
| +3 | Tribe city has the religion (not holy) |
| +2 | Tribe site has the religion |
Role points
Role points add to city points, family or not.
| +3 | Governor of the holy city |
| +2 | Governor of a city with this religion (not the holy city) |
| +2 | Agent in the holy city |
| +1 | Agent in a city with this religion (not the holy city) |
Bonus points after the threshold
Only candidates that cleared the threshold get these.
| +3 | It is a pagan religion |
| +0–4 | 4 minus the number of characters who follow it (never below 0), which helps small religions |
Final tiebreaker
Each candidate's total is multiplied by a random number from 5 to 14. The highest result wins.
Roll chance 10%; conversion starts on turn 10; minimum age 10; adulthood at 18.