What are the advantages of Converting Religions?

[Dino_j]

I'm playing in my current game as Great Britain and the reformation has begun. In some past games, I've converted to Protestant and in some I've stayed Catholic. It seems that either way I'll have religious rebellions and, even with the ducats I get for converting, it doesn't justify the -5 stability.

I have about a 15-20 overseas colonies that are mostly Catholic now.

I was wondering if there was a big advantage to changing religions that I'm missing.

Thanks!

 

[Dauth]

If you're a small trading nation going reformed gives a 10% trade eff boost which is a big kick at 1500.

 

[cuendillar]

The big advantage is that you can swap to a better religion.

Catholicism is nice for a non-trading colonizer, or a large narrowminded nation accruing plenty infamy.
Reformed is for trading nations exclusively, but also have boosts to colonial growth. They can afford to have many more colonies growing simultaneously.
Protestants are best for non-trading economies due to sizeable bonuses to both tax and production. Their downside is fewer colonists and higher stab costs.

 

[unmerged(605863)]

Reformed gives a boost to trade income
Protestant gives a boost to production income
Catholic gives a boost to colonization AND also helps to burn infamy and you can become papal controller, with some nice bonuses.
If you want a big empire I would suggest Catholic, specially if you are going to colonize.

And, if you already started colonizing before converting, you shouldn't convert or you'll have to deal with converting those colonies.

 

[Dino_j]

Thanks for the advice - I do have a number of colonies and new that I did get more colonists for being Catholic. My next game, I may pick a smaller nation and try converting to reformed and see how it plays out.

 

[cuendillar]

Thanks for the advice - I do have a number of colonies and new that I did get more colonists for being Catholic. My next game, I may pick a smaller nation and try converting to reformed and see how it plays out.

You don't actually get more colonists from Catholicism, you get fewer from being Protestant. Both Reformed and Catholics gets +1 per year, the difference is that Catholics have higher success chance and reformists higher growth rate once they're founded. Protestants only get 0.5 annually and no bonuses, so they're pretty much only good if you stay at home.

The unique downside of Catholicism is that they have the worst tolerance in the game for heretics, so they pretty much have to convert any provinces that flips ASAP. The other Christians can ignore that to a much larger degree, once they're out of religious turmoil. I prefer reformed for colonizing, but that's largely because I tend to go innovative - so get fewer missionaries and no benefits from the curia.

 

[grommile]

The other Christians can ignore that to a much larger degree, once they're out of religious turmoil. I prefer reformed for colonizing, but that's largely because I tend to go innovative - so get fewer missionaries and no benefits from the curia.

If you are huge and take religious fanaticism ideas, you can be controller while full innovative

 

[Ramidel]

I wrote a guide here that explains the differences between religions and my recommendations.