How do you know in which city a religion will be founded?

[Jubala]

I know that with just two cities it will be founded in the newest city, but what if you have three cities? Is it the newest? The smallest? The one with longest distance to capital? Lowest culture? I've searched the forums without luck so I thought I'd ask.

[Willem]

It seems to be random. The only thing I've noticed is that it won't be created in your capital.

[EternalSpark]

Yah, it's random. I'm a reloader, so I always save a turn before a Religion Tech is invented, so I can adequately place where I want the Holy City.

It's rather annoying to have a Holy City on your border, and have its effects cause your bordermate to convert, thus ruining your relations.

[Willem]

Originally posted by EternalSpark
It's rather annoying to have a Holy City on your border, and have its effects cause your bordermate to convert, thus ruining your relations.

I think you're missing the point about culture. It's good to have a city flip on you so don't have to take it by force. The AI will get over it if you try to be nice to it afterwards.

Back on subject though, it really bugs me when my Holy City gets created in some useless city that I only established in order to secure my border. I've quit games because of that.

[EternalSpark]

It's good to have a city flip on you so don't have to take it by force.

I didn't mean city-flipping, I meant Religion Flipping. Your bordermate loves you because you're both Jews, Islam is founded near your border, it bleeds to him a bit, and suddenly he's Islamic - and doesn't like your Jewishness.

[Willem]

Originally posted by EternalSpark


I didn't mean city-flipping, I meant Religion Flipping. Your bordermate loves you because you're both Jews, Islam is founded near your border, it bleeds to him a bit, and suddenly he's Islamic - and doesn't like your Jewishness.

So become Islamic as well. If you founded the religion it doesn't really matter, you still get the benefits from having the Holy City/Shrine.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

My most recent game had me building a total of 9 cities just so I could build temples in all of them in order to build cathedrals in my three main cities for a cultural win.

I managed to grab all the religions except the first two early ones and sure enough.. I end up islam being founded in one of my 'worthless' cities that was really only in existence at all so I had some place to build temples for all the other religions.

I ended up losing, by the way. Only 1 legendary city before an AI tag team completed the space race. Interestingly enough, the legendary city was actually the third city I built, not my capital as you'd expect.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Willem


So become Islamic as well. If you founded the religion it doesn't really matter, you still get the benefits from having the Holy City/Shrine.

By the time Islam is founded, he probably has 10 cities that are Jewish and only the one with Islam. If he switches to Islam as his state religion, he's going to have less happiness in Jewish cities with no Islamic presence, less cultural growth in said non-Islamic cities, and lose whatever bonus he got based on his religious civics - no more 25% production, 2 experience, or 100% Great People. Switching to a newly founded religion as your state religion can be devastating, especially if you took care to make sure your old state religion was in every city.