Most Powerful Religion?

[The-King]

Curia bonuses stronk. I can see where Shiite can be desirable over Catholicism for smaller countries or people who do not want to deal with curia clickfest.

Stronk in what sense? They're mostly gimmicky bonus' that are just 'nice' but nothing particularly good.

+1 Diplomat. Only useful for the early, maybe mid-game but becomes much less useful later.
+1 Prestige is nice
+2 advisors. 'Nice' I guess, usually we have enough of a good selection already, if you need a specific advisor you can usually pick one up if you keep a careful eye on your advisors.
+2 Yearly papal influence. Useless
+1 Leader without upkeep. Fairly useless only good if you plan to keep some of your leaders after a war. Or if you want to keep a general and an admiral during peacetime.
Excommunications. Useless because you don't get the casus belli from the excommunication.
Crusades. I guess its nice if you want to annex your crusade target every time that's used but overall its not too useful.
-5 stab cost, I like this one but its only nice but fairly unimportant
Can break royal ties without losing stability. Another useless perk that is only useful if you don't plan properly or your plans were changed and you decided you want to start wars against a marriaged nation.

They're all 'average' for the most part and useful in specific circumstances.

The actual good stuff comes from the cardinals.
-1% tech cost per advisor is very nice and the best part of being a catholic but that isn't even guaranteed until you're some sort of super blob or if you make a bunch of cathedrals.
+0.5 legitimacy is situationally good, only good if you have legitimacy issues, and useless if you don't.


Compare those to Islams big bonus' of piety
+3 missionary strength - this is useful for converting
+25% morale - Very good, this beats every bonus of the curia combined.
fort defense +25% - this is okay

or

+25% taxes
+25% national manpower
-10% technology cost

Which are all very very good bonus. The tech boost is better than controlling all of the curia and doesn't have the downside of needing to control the entire curia to get it. You save more points and get more income/manpower. Generally I would national build with unpiety and wage wars with piety. But the manpower +25% is useful enough anyways.

Not to mention Muslims get Unite Islam which gives
+2 tolerance of the true faith. Essentially -2 revolt risk but its nice
+2 missionary strength. Another nice perk but not all too useful
-20% stability cost. This one is very nice and beats the Curia's version of it by 15%.

I know that Catholics get a whole bunch of decisions but most of those are missionary strength which the Ottomans already gets from being Pious.

Overall in a game about war, the muslim perks offer much better versatility in nation building and waging war and so I would rate it much better.

If we're talking multiplayer the curia is even harder to control unless there is very few catholic nations so that's another nerf to them. And if we're talking singleplayer then these bonus' are neglible because of how easy it is to beat the AI.

tl;dr: Catholic bonus' are gimmicky, Muslim bonus' offer more reliable and better perks.

 

[balmung60]

Stronk in what sense? They're mostly gimmicky bonus' that are just 'nice' but nothing particularly good.

+1 Diplomat. Only useful for the early, maybe mid-game but becomes much less useful later.
+1 Prestige is nice
+2 advisors. 'Nice' I guess, usually we have enough of a good selection already, if you need a specific advisor you can usually pick one up if you keep a careful eye on your advisors.
+2 Yearly papal influence. Useless
+1 Leader without upkeep. Fairly useless only good if you plan to keep some of your leaders after a war. Or if you want to keep a general and an admiral during peacetime.
Excommunications. Useless because you don't get the casus belli from the excommunication.
Crusades. I guess its nice if you want to annex your crusade target every time that's used but overall its not too useful.
-5 stab cost, I like this one but its only nice but fairly unimportant
Can break royal ties without losing stability. Another useless perk that is only useful if you don't plan properly or your plans were changed and you decided you want to start wars against a marriaged nation.

They're all 'average' for the most part and useful in specific circumstances.

The actual good stuff comes from the cardinals.
-1% tech cost per advisor is very nice and the best part of being a catholic but that isn't even guaranteed until you're some sort of super blob or if you make a bunch of cathedrals.
+0.5 legitimacy is situationally good, only good if you have legitimacy issues, and useless if you don't.


Compare those to Islams big bonus' of piety
+3 missionary strength - this is useful for converting
+25% morale - Very good, this beats every bonus of the curia combined.
fort defense +25% - this is okay

or

+25% taxes
+25% national manpower
-10% technology cost

Which are all very very good bonus. The tech boost is better than controlling all of the curia and doesn't have the downside of needing to control the entire curia to get it. You save more points and get more income/manpower. Generally I would national build with unpiety and wage wars with piety. But the manpower +25% is useful enough anyways.

Not to mention Muslims get Unite Islam which gives
+2 tolerance of the true faith. Essentially -2 revolt risk but its nice
+2 missionary strength. Another nice perk but not all too useful
-20% stability cost. This one is very nice and beats the Curia's version of it by 15%.

I know that Catholics get a whole bunch of decisions but most of those are missionary strength which the Ottomans already gets from being Pious.

Overall in a game about war, the muslim perks offer much better versatility in nation building and waging war and so I would rate it much better.

If we're talking multiplayer the curia is even harder to control unless there is very few catholic nations so that's another nerf to them. And if we're talking singleplayer then these bonus' are neglible because of how easy it is to beat the AI.

tl;dr: Catholic bonus' are gimmicky, Muslim bonus' offer more reliable and better perks.

I beg to differ about the advisor pool. Having a few additional leaders adds a lot of flexibility and more reliable access to +3 level advisors. That bonus translates into more monarch points.

Having an extra free leader is quite nice, too, since not having to fire as many generals in peace time saves MIL over hiring more and it makes it easier to have more generals during war.

And as for the Muslim bonuses, you can pretty much ignore the negative piety bonuses if you're Shiite since you'll pretty much only be DoWing other religions, which gives +25% piety per declaration.

 

[Locklen]

So what we need is a Shiite republic Prussia?

Also as far as Catholic being the best goes, there is the major (if subjective) downside of having to actually interact with the curia, which really moves it down the list for me. Also, being Protestant means being able to cleanse the heresy of the Catholics, which can be very helpful for preventing France/whatever from being war leader when all you wanna do is beat up some small power.

And as far as christian decisions go, I know that the Education act requires Christianity, and gives -5% tech cost, +5% coring cost, and +.5 prestige/year in addition to all of the + missionary strength ones (which add up to more than the Muslims get with full piety).

 

[StatikShocker]

orthodox is fine, slider should always be maxed. not #1 but you guys are missing it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oman will be Ibadi in new patch so QQ is the only shia country at start I believe...
animist is best of course

Wat.

Kashmir, Gujarat, Bahmanis, Haasa, QQ, and Oman are all currently shiite.

 

[Dakilla TM]

orthodox is fine, slider should always be maxed. not #1 but you guys are missing it

But that -33% tax tho......

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But that -33% tax tho......

Tax is usually weaker than trade + production. Ortho is definitely not best but there's nothing wrong with it...almost the exact middle of the pack (much better than pagans and non-shinto eastern, a bit inferior to other Christian religions except maybe reformed).

 

[Incompetent]

+1 Diplomat. Only useful for the early, maybe mid-game but becomes much less useful later.
+0.5 legitimacy is situationally good, only good if you have legitimacy issues, and useless if you don't.

I take it you don't diplovassalise/annex that many countries in the late game.

 

[Rubidium]

Not to mention Muslims get Unite Islam which gives
+2 tolerance of the true faith. Essentially -2 revolt risk but its nice
+2 missionary strength. Another nice perk but not all too useful
-20% stability cost. This one is very nice and beats the Curia's version of it by 15%.

By the time you can reasonably expect to "Unite Islam", your game is close to won already. It's a factor, but a small one. In contrast, early curia control is vastly easier, and earlier bonuses>later bonuses.

But I think you are massively underrating +2 advisors; that essentially guarantees that you will have at least one at whatever level you want. It's not common to have a situation where you can only afford a +1 and only have +2 or +3 on offer, but it's a long enough game that it (or the converse, no +3s when you can afford them) is basically guaranteed to happen for a while every game. So that's a direct monarch points boost, even leaving aside the strengths of the different/situational advisors. Likewise, the +1 leader without upkeep translates as +1 military MP every month during war, not to mention however much you would spend rerolling bad generals (since you can keep them during peace time, you can keep a couple good leaders around, rather than only one).

Piety also resets on ruler death (to 25%), and some of the events may inflict penalties to keep it at the point you want (admittedly, this latter point also affects papal influence), which means you aren't actually sitting at +/- 100% piety all game, and thus won't get the full benefit of all the bonuses. That's especially true if you go negative piety, as there are only so many same-religion nations to beat up on (and don't get me started on the difficulty of an impious Shiite).

That said, the reason I rarely stay Catholic is because of the Curia mini-game. Much more satisfying to just be a super-pious Shiite and smash everyone who opposes me with my ultra-high morale doomstack.

 

[Imgran]

That said, the reason I rarely stay Catholic is because of the Curia mini-game.

I'm hearing a lot of that. That's a good sign that the devs need to look into a fix or upgrade here.

In terms of sheer munchkin potential the answer is clearly Shiite. Personally I like to roleplay and stick with whatever religion I start with.

 

[The-King]

By the time you can reasonably expect to "Unite Islam", your game is close to won already. It's a factor, but a small one. In contrast, early curia control is vastly easier, and earlier bonuses>later bonuses.

I can agree with this, but a lot of others have been arguing that once you're a fully formed HRE blob that Catholicism is better because curia control is almost always guarenteed.

As for the rest of your post, I think you make great points. There are downsides and upsides for both and I think that's very cool. But in a purely "which is better?" comparison i still believe that that Islam is much better.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I can agree with this, but a lot of others have been arguing that once you're a fully formed HRE blob that Catholicism is better because curia control is almost always guarenteed.

As for the rest of your post, I think you make great points. There are downsides and upsides for both and I think that's very cool. But in a purely "which is better?" comparison i still believe that that Islam is much better.

I don't know about *much* better. That heir chance thing really puts a crimp on PU abuse, and despite what you say the extra diplomat is good all game if abusing the vassals/feeding for more land. Decisions are a factor also, and Christian gets better ones than Shiite.

I still think Shiite is a bit better overall, but one luck PU and it swings the other way (very few Muslim nations are even worth bothering to try for PUs, and it's extremely hard to get them due to heir chance).

 

[HappyMephisto]

My personal favorite is good ol' boring protestantism. I like the bonus to idea cost way to much, especially with say...Milano, to stay with catholicism. If i want to get involved with the HRE then protestantism also usually guarantees me a strong position for emperor - Austria mostly stays loyal to the pope and next big fish is often Bohemia, which seldom poses a real threat. Thus, because three to four electors change to protestantism, I can become emperor quite easily. Combined with the religious unity CB the Restauratio Imperii becomes much easier and at that point religion is quite overrated anyway. Also I hate that curia mini-game, even if the boni are quite good.

Judging from the discussion up to this point however, I think shia is quite powerfull. Mostly because of the piety mechanic and the ridiculous morale boost.

 

[Novacat]

Stronk in what sense? They're mostly gimmicky bonus' that are just 'nice' but nothing particularly good.

+1 Free Leaders is enormously great as a large empire because a large empire is going to have a lot more stacks than free leaders for them.

+2 advisors is great because you always want more choices of advisors.

+Prestige and +Legitimacy are always great because of the bonuses those two provide.

Diplomat is great because it basically means you dont need any idea groups that give diplomats.

I know that Catholics get a whole bunch of decisions but most of those are missionary strength which the Ottomans already gets from being Pious.

Not even close. Pious at max gives +3% Missionary strength. Catholics can get +6% Missionary Strength. On top of getting a permanent -5% technology cost and +0.5 Yearly Prestige in exchange for +5% coring cost through Education Act and, should they choose to do so, they also have Statue of Restraint of Appeals which gives -10% Stability cost, -1 Revolt risk, and +0.5 Yearly Prestige in exchange for -2 Diplomatic Reputation and -2 Papal Influence (which, to a large empire, is nothing, I once played a united HRE and I was still dominated the curia after enacting it).

Comparatively speaking, Muslims only have Unite Islam, which has notoriously difficult requirements, and thus is not really a practical decision for most players. Though Muslims do have a series of ruler modifiers which are fairly powerful, but also require rulers with extremely high stats, which means they wont be enacted through most of the player's game. Though a Muslim Republic could potentially game that system.

Your also completely ignoring the HRE.

orthodox is fine, slider should always be maxed. not #1 but you guys are missing it

Its essentially a 'Better than nothing' type deal. The revoltrisk only applies to true fath provinces and generally your true faith revoltrisk is going to be low enough to be irrellevant anyway. Muslim is much better overall.

 

[HansBaer]

I just can't cope with the Pope's clickfest anymore.
If you want to be emperor and get through the reforms asap, i would say Protestantism is even better than Catholicism. You won't get any penalties from countries abandoning the true faith, only IA bonuses you don't have to lift a finger for. Calvinism is so easily squashed right from scratch by every halfway competent emperor, so it won't really matter.
By the number it's Shiite of course.

 

[Saintrl]

I'm not gonna lie, I rare see Muslim republics for whatever reason. I sometimes wonder if it's even possible to become a republic as a Muslim country. Never seen rebels that could swap your government while playing as Muslim. A Shiite Islamic Republic would probably be very stronk though because of all the good ruler decision that you're practically guaranteed to get.

 

[AnonHobo]

If you're building a mega-empire, then Catholic HRE Emperor with Curia monopoly and Erbkaisertum blows every other possible combination out of the water.

If you're staying smallish, then Protestant, Reformed and the two kinds of Islam are all pretty good depending on what you want to do.

I can go with this.

Being small means you have to focus being awesome at a few things rather than being awesome at everything already.

 

[HansBaer]

I'm not gonna lie, I rare see Muslim republics for whatever reason. I sometimes wonder if it's even possible to become a republic as a Muslim country. Never seen rebels that could swap your government while playing as Muslim. A Shiite Islamic Republic would probably be very stronk though because of all the good ruler decision that you're practically guaranteed to get.

I have seen it in the earliest versions of the game, but not since 1.2 i guess. Playing Genoa or Ragusa and getting rebelled to Shiite is probably the easier way to do it.

 

[Novacat]

I have seen it in the earliest versions of the game, but not since 1.2 i guess. Playing Genoa or Ragusa and getting rebelled to Shiite is probably the easier way to do it.

Novgorod in the Steppe can switch easily, and has that sweet RT bonus to boot.

 

[Saintrl]

Ok, I rephrase my statement. I've never seen a Muslim republic appear without gamey tactics. -_-