Anglican religion -- worthwhile still?

[heliostellar]

Does anyone bother adopting the Anglican religion these days? With all the good buffs you can get with Catholic, I think Anglican is almost always a suboptimal choice.

Here is my deep dive comparison. I'd love some feedback on it. So far, I think it's fair to say that Anglicanism sucks right now.

Spoiler

Anglican passive effects

• -10% dev cost - interesting, but not great. Slightly strong than the papal bull, Christiana Pietas (-5% dev cost).
• +50% innovative gain - meh. Is innovativeness that hard for England/GB to accumulate that this would matter much?
• Treaty of Tordesillas - allows you to ignore existing colonial area claims. This is also situationally useful. For instance, if you are late to the colonial game.
• One-time payment of 1 year's income - good, but it comes at a relatively high price otherwise
• Safe from excommunication - unless you are playing Florence, Milan, Provence, or Venice (i.e., natural rivals of the Papal States), you should really never be excommunicated
• Church power mechanics (see below for comparison)

Catholic passive effects

• +1 tolerance of the True Faith - lower unrest is always useful
• +1% missionary strength vs heathens - faster conversion of primitives in the colonies
• Treaty of Tordesillas - faster colonization
• Inherent buff to relations with other Catholics - situational. Can be either a nice to have or very important, depending on how invested you are on the continent. Depends on outcomes from Council of Trent.
• Inherent male ruler right to be elected HRE
• Golden bulls
  • Illius Qui Se Pro Divini: -10% aggressive exp and Crusade calling
  • Apostolicae Servitutis: -50% curia powers cost
  • Christiana Pietas: +2 tolerance of heretics and -5% dev cost
  • Immensa Aeterni Dei: -10% embracement cost, +25% instit spread, cardinals spread instit -
  • Libertas Ecclesiae: +20% imperial autho growth and +15 approval for imperial reforms -
  • Dei Gratia Rex: +0.5 yearly absolutism, -2 unrest in Catholic (i.e., "true faith) provinces, and -25% regiment drill loss
• Papal influence mechanics (see below for comparison)

Powers Menu (Anglican // Catholic)​	Benefit​	Comments​
Divorce // n/a	Remove the current consort	Obviously this is the historic raison d'etre for Anglicanism. Great, if you are Henry VIII or you are playing CK2 or CK3. Generally, I do not care about maintaining a British Isles-derived dynasty. It's actually useful to snag a German or Spanish dynasty instead later in the game.
Marry Local Noblewoman // n/a	Random female consort	I suppose this is also part of the raison d'etre for Anglicanism to allow for you to have an analogy to Anne Boleyn. Again, not sure why this is really all that important to me other than RP reasons. We already have events that randomly trigger and give you an aristocrat consort if you don't have one.
n/a // Sanction Dynasty	+1 legitimacy (or gov type equiv) +10% improve relations	Burn off that AE faster
n/a // Invest influence	+10 influence in next Curia election	Pope minigame comes with a litany (pun intended) of additional side benefits
n/a // Levy church tax	-10% construction cost +15% national tax	Better than Dissolve Monasteries. Take cheaper loans with Forgive usury, combine with this, spam churches (and other buildings), and you'll quickly expand your economy rather than getting a dispense cash button.
n/a // Forgive usury	+0.1 yearly inflation reduction -0.25 interest per annum -0.04 yearly corruption	This range of economic benefits plus Levy church tax is lightyears ahead of a 3 month income lump sum. It allows for the flexibility of making either loans or corruption more manageable.
Dissolve Monasteries // n/a	lump sum of 0.25 years income	Dispense cash button is never anything to sneeze at, but a quarter year of income matters only if you are already making decent income. Catholic buffs are much more robust and flexible.
n/a // Bless ruler	+10% land morale +1 yearly prestige	Yes, please. Anglican has nothing here.
n/a // Proclaim holy war	+15% manpower recovery speed -5% land maintenance	Between this and Bless ruler, Catholics have a comprehensive set of buffs to fight wars with stronger troops and to recover from wars faster. Anglican has nothing here.
n/a // Send papal legate	+1 diplo rep -10% diplo annexation cost	Anglican has nothing here.
Grant Monopoly // Sanction commercial monopoly	+1 mercantilism	Neither has the edge
Progress of the Supreme Governor // Beatify local saint	+1 stability	Neither has the edge

 

[Cookiepie]

Unless you wanted to do some memey tall play/dev cost stacking I don't think Anglican ever was worth it. The gap is obviously even bigger now though.

 

[heliostellar]

Unless you wanted to do some memey tall play/dev cost stacking I don't think Anglican ever was worth it. The gap is obviously even bigger now though.

I hear that

 

[Vin55]

never was worth it, protestantantism needs a buff, I mean catholic and orthodox nations where less efficient than them, especially with colonisation, trade, economies and also education.

 

[delusonalism_]

id prefer the devs to work on anglicans niche as a strict tall religion rather than buff it to be generally better. personally id prefer to see different denominations within the same religious group be focused at doing one thing so they stand out and make the choice more interesting to lean into playstyle preferences. i think orthodox occupies this as a more military focused religion for christians. catholic is just plain better than all the protestant choices as it stands

 

[ianchen12345]

Deus Vult?

 

[Jihem]

Deus Vult?

It would be quite curious to see Anglican fanatics carrying out a kind of jihad

 

[Bouchart]

Only if you need the achievements, or if you want the religious CB against most of Europe.

 

[Big Bad France]

Anglican is necessary for the "chop chop" achievement, and that is probably the only reason you would want to adopt it. It does get you out of any Treaty of Tordesillas concerns, but protestant also does that, and protestant is quite a bit stronger.

 

[jamal bakr]

Did calvinism, lutheranism (aka "protestantism") and anglicanism ever really view each other as "heretics" in the same way as there was a catholic/protestant divide? Like a Lutheran versus Reform holy war? TBH it would have been better handled as a more customizable "Protestant" religion, but I don't think its worth re-opening this can of beans at this point.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Anglican is necessary for the "chop chop" achievement, and that is probably the only reason you would want to adopt it. It does get you out of any Treaty of Tordesillas concerns, but protestant also does that, and protestant is quite a bit stronger.

Humanist + reformed is also convenient, especially if you can add significant -cost vs other religions. Immediate 3 tolerance/100% unity in all Christian provinces is usually good enough to ignore unity forever, and fervent focus on war/stability are both useful.

It's so hard to pass up Catholic generally now, especially after recent buffs. For SP expansion it's strong...constant papal bonuses including dipannex cost and constant 3 stability as long as you're converting land.

 

[Nostalgium]

Did calvinism, lutheranism (aka "protestantism") and anglicanism ever really view each other as "heretics" in the same way as there was a catholic/protestant divide? Like a Lutheran versus Reform holy war? TBH it would have been better handled as a more customizable "Protestant" religion, but I don't think its worth re-opening this can of beans at this point.

While I agree that "Protestantism" probably should be renamed "Lutheranism" to keep it consistent, it's worth noting that the term "Calvinist", in a twist, originated from Lutheran sects to differentiate them from themselves, in the same way the Catholic Church usually named heresies after their founders. Calvin himself had some choice words about them because of that. It might not have been to the same degree - I'm not overly familiar with the topic - but that shows at least a certain degree of animosity between the two groups.

 

[heliostellar]

Deus Vult?

Deus Vult? In Europe? Meh... Again, if you wanted to play on the continent, Catholic is several orders of magnitude better: military buffs from papal mana, better relations with other Europeans who also usually stay Catholic, lower unrest in wrong culture/true faith provinces, etc.

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

I've only ever played England as Protestant.

My last serious 'wide' England campaign was on 1.30 before Catholicism got buffed, and the military Church Powers made up for crappy British military ideas.

I had a historical England/Great Britain play through recently and I also went Protestant for the colonialism boost.

If I were to play again I'd probably stay Catholic. HRE Emperor England with France under a PU, the possibility of complete control over the English channel via Burgundian Inheritance is just too juicy....

 

[Jihem]

Since a considerable number of players are attracted to roleplaying, and that England/GB is a popular nation, so a strong incentive to opt for Anglicanism must be given. What appropriate buffs related to historical plausibility and doctrine characteristics ?

 

[holyvigil]

I've only ever picked Anglican for historical and color superiority reasons.

 

[st360]

Unless you wanted to do some memey tall play/dev cost stacking I don't think Anglican ever was worth it. The gap is obviously even bigger now though.

Almost every religion has a dev cost reduction anyway. Even more compounded by the dev reduction of the holy roman empire, where you have to destroy yourself to join it and then give up a free emperorship to be anglican.

 

[bestbrian]

Deus Vult?

Why am I suddenly reminded of Eddie Izzard's Church of England bit?

 

[grommile]

Anglican was never worth implementing as a separate feature in the first place; it was exceptionalist pandering to Britaboos, when the existing Protestant religion was perfectly adequate for representing the Church of England in practical terms.

(For the avoidance of doubt: I am a Brit, a bunch of my friends are church-going Anglicans, and if someone held a gun to my head and told me I had to formally adopt a religion or be shot, I would go book myself an Anglican christening post-haste )

id prefer the devs to work on anglicans niche as a strict tall religion

The Westminster state absolutely wanted to go wide – it's just that going wide in Europe was not really practical once the Kings of England were decisively expelled from France.

Like Catholic Spain, England/Britain pursued foreign width so as to obtain, in classical imperial style, a periphery exploitable for the benefit of the metropole's elite.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

There were probably conflicts between the reformed denomination but they also often allied each other against Catholics, I think they should get at least a reduced penalty similar as Orthodox to the others, if not even making it neutral. Could also change in a similar fashion as Schools in Islam. They should not be put at such a massive diplomatic disadvantage.

I would always take Anglican for Britain for Roleplay reason, but from a balance perspective it is really weak. 2 of the abilities have nearly no impact on the game whatsever, they are just there for meme and the achievement and the rest is not particularly strong as well. An economic / tall / colonial / navy focus is OK, no need to give it army modifiers, but at least give it 5 more practical abilities.