Among the many things you can do in Civilization 6, founding and spreading your own custom religion is by far one of the most interesting. With plenty of options to choose from when creating, from symbols to how it affects your followers, the most impacting is most definitely the Belief system. When first founding a new religion, you are prompted to choose two Beliefs from a list, and you can later expand by converting other civilizations and evangelizing your religion. These Beliefs represent what your religion is based on, and what bonuses it will get from it.
There are three categories of Beliefs, which impact how they work. These are: follower beliefs, which impacts any city which follows that religion, even if it hasn’t founded it; Founder beliefs, giving bonuses to the founding civ, usually scaling with the amount of followers; Enhancer, which aids in spread and defense of your religion, not giving output bonuses.
So without more rambling, here are the best religious beliefs in Civilization 6.
10. Mosque
Belief Effect:
- +3 Faith, Missionaries and Apostles +1 Spread Religion charge.
For spreading your religion across nations in a faster way, the Mosque is a go to belief. It adds a charge to your missionaries and apostles, meaning that you get more value for every one that you buy. It also has an output of +3 Faith, making those troops that are already more effective even easier to acquire. By utilizing the bonus charge to overwhelm other city’s religious spread, you can convert entire civilizations much quicker.
The Mosque’s bonuses are very good since missionaries and apostles are the backbone of religious warfare and converting cities. Usually, they come with only 3 charges, so having an extra one is a whopping 25% bonus to their utility. With it you will have a stronger force of religious units that should quickly take over and make your religion the biggest one in the world.
9. Holy Order
Belief Effect:
- 30% cheaper Missionaries and Apostles.
The Holy Order belief is a simple yet extremely effective buff that allows you to create a massive religious army that is sure to convert everyone. With 30% cheaper Missionaries and Apostles, you can spam them to amass a huge amount of religious units. Since these two are the main source for converting cities, the idea of having effectively 30% more faith to buy units is very appealing. With a good Faith output and the bonus combined, the price for these units will become much easier to deal with. This also helps with religious warfare, since you will have more units who can take damage and can be easily replaced.
8. Sacred Places
Belief Effect:
- +2 Science, Gold, Faith, and Culture for every city following this religion that has a wonder.
Focusing on religion can be difficult when you have to manage many different resources at once. The Sacred Places belief makes this task a bit easier by giving you a +2 in almost every important resource. This bonus comes to play whenever a city that follows your religion has a wonder, giving +2 Science, Gold, Faith and Culture. Although it requires that either you or others focus on wonders, a bonus affecting that many resources at once makes it very versatile.
If you play as a Civ that focuses on building wonders, such as China, you can more easily abuse this mechanic. Because the bonus comes from every CITY that has a wonder, it is not worth it to build more than one wonder in the same city. By spreading out your wonders, you can optimize the amount you gain, and can help you in keeping up with other priorities aside from religion.
7. Work Ethic
Belief Effect:
- +1% Production for each follower, Holy Sites provide Production equal to Faith.
Having a high production during a religious game can be difficult, especially if most of your main buildings are focused on Faith. This belief helps by increasing production without any downsides, increasing by 1% for every follower. This may not seem like much, but taking into account that late game worlds have populations in the hundreds, the bonus can become huge.
Not only that, but Holy Sites become a sort of double-district, outputting production equal to faith. Both of the abilities from this belief can turn your nation into a production powerhouse, allowing you to get Wonder before your enemies, have a strong and sizable standing army, and build even more Holy Sites. This easily turns into a snowball in the late-game, making your religious nation not weak against wars and pressures.
6. Pilgrimage
Belief Effect:
- +2 Faith for every city that is not yours following this religion.
If you have trouble keeping a high Faith output or choose a leader that isn’t focused on religion, having an extra source of Faith can be very useful. With every city converted that is not yours, a bonus of +2 Faith is added every turn. This might not be as strong of a belief in the early game, but after converting a few enemy cities, it can add up to a sizable amount.
This Belief is useful in cases where you don’t have the time to build more Holy Sites, which is not ideal, but can happen especially during wars. Having an extra source of Faith is always a good idea when trying to convert the rest of the world.
5. Feed the World
Belief Effect:
- Shrines and Temples provide Food equal to Faith output.
Many of the bonuses from religion are affected by the number of followers that you have. This means that having good food production is extremely important, but can be difficult to manage with other priorities. Feed the World gives you a Food output equal to Faith in Shrines and Temples, relieving you of some of the burden of an increasing population.
In the best scenario, high yield fully upgraded Hoy Sites can give incredible amounts of food. This is great for not having to worry about population growth, almost guaranteeing you a good source of food for your population. With this, having a majority religion will be much easier, as your bigger population gives off more pressure to nearby cities. A sure win for a hungry religious zealot.
4. Choral Music
Belief Effect:
- Shrines and Temples provide Culture equal to Faith output.
Like many other beliefs in this list, having an extra source of yield of other non-religious resources is very important. Keeping up with the civics and science trees can be difficult if you are trying to focus on building Holy Sites, so having Shrines and Temples work for you like Theater Squares is extremely useful. This almost relieves you of one of the most important aspects of the game.
With less things to manage and fewer districts to build, it is much easier to focus on your religion. Having high output Holy Sites can mean the difference between being late on the Civics tree, or having to build another Theater Squares just because you can't keep up. Instead, spamming and fully upgrading Holy Sites can almost replace Theater Squares, allowing you to focus on Campuses and spreading your truth.
3. Tithe
Belief Effect:
- +1 Gold for every 4 follower of this religion
One aspect that may be neglected during a religious victory match is your currency. The Tithe belief adds +1 Gold per turn for every 4 followers of your religion. By having so many different things to keep track of, Gold seems like a less important aspect, especially if you have a smaller army. However, having a big Gold reserve is extremely important for many different reasons. You might need to quickly buy an army, or buy Holy Sites instead of building them.
Since in mid game most cities have already been settled and can have upwards of 15 population, a big sum of Gold can be acquired through this Belief. Even if only taking into account your own cities, a big Gold bonus can be earned this way without doing anything at all. In the late game, having all that Gold stored up can be the difference between having your Capital ravaged by war, or winning with your quickly bought mercenary army.
2. Monastic Isolation
Belief Effect:
- Your Religion's pressure never drops due to losses in Theological Combat.
If going for a Religious win, Religious pressure is extremely important. This is dictated by how many people follow your religion as well as Theological Combat, where two Religious units face off in a holy battle. However, losing these leads to a lower Religious pressure, making it harder to convert to other cities. With this Belief, that is not something you will have to worry about.
By not dropping Religious pressure whenever you lose theological combat, you won’t need to worry when getting into conflicts. Since you will not have the debuff of losing, you can freely enter theological combat without side effects, while your enemies will still have to deal with that. This belief can mean the difference between having to retreat your religious troops and not fearing advancing into enemy territory.
1. Cross Cultural Dialogue
Belief Effect:
- +1 Science for every 5 followers in other civilizations
Lastly on our list, Cross Cultural Dialogue gives you +1 Science per turn for every 5 followers in OTHER civilizations. This does mean that it is not as useful in the early game, but once cities start building up in population, huge science bonuses can be acquired. This Belief is not only useful for keeping up with the tech tree during a religious game, but can help any Civilization by getting them technologically ahead of their enemies.
Spreading your religion with this belief will slowly give you a bigger and bigger science output, and can lead to a big gap between you and your foes. With a technological advantage, you are able to predict and even outsmart your opponents moves, with better military, production and districts at your disposal.
