Europa Universalis: Rome/Religion

Religion is an important aspect of the ancient ages. With Europa Universalis: Rome, religion can be used to keep the country together.

At the beginning of the game, religion prestige and power may not be strong. Improving them is a long term process that takes place across the entire game, by setting up complex trade or

Religion Interface
The religion interace is opened by clicking on the building icon. This interface has four major elements:


 * The state religion shown at the top, and a sacrifice icon to the right.
 * A list of omens that may be invoked for a chance to benefit one apsect of society.
 * The list of world religons at the bottom.
 * One summary sentence at the bottom suggesting what to do.

Omens
There are eight omens you can perform. Each omen has a specific chance of success, providing a bonus if it is successful. Before deciding on the omen, you will want to look at the religious power and the omen success chance. If it's unfavorable, you may want to pick an omen that's unlikely to have an impact on your country. Additionally, the omen is affected by the religious power, which may make it either more or less effective than the base values. Omens last for 1 year, at which point they need to be performed again.

When in peace, you will want to use economy boosting omens, such as trade income (if you're low on gold), research points (for long-term benefit) or Population Growth (if attempting to push colonies).

During wartime, boosting morale helps your soldiers last longer during battle, while discipline improves the damage they can perform. Defensiveness is only useful when at war or if you're being attacked.

The omen for reducing revolt risk is useful if you have many provinces that aren't stable (whether it's due to anger from taxes or if you suffer from negative stability).

The last omen for ruler popularity can be used if the ruler risks being ousted from his position or is suffering from opposition from their own senate.

Not performing an omen will increase the power of the populist faction. However, this may be necessary if you have a low chance of omen success, or if you want to hold the omen for later. If there is no omen declared for a longer period of time (usually 5 years), the high priest will declare one for you, with a good or bad one being based on the loyalty of the high priest.

List of religions
There are ten religions, organized under four groups: 🇨🇴 🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Hellenistic Pantheon
 * Roman
 * Greek
 * Egyptian
 * Semetic Pantheon
 * Cathaginian
 * Phoenician
 * Paganism
 * Shamanism
 * Druidism
 * Animism
 * Monotheism
 * Judaism
 * Zoroastrian

Those within the same religious group tend to have relation bonuses with each other, wile religious differences tend to cause strife.

Religion determines which inventions you will discover in the technology tree.

Religion during gameplay
Provinces that match the state religion provide bonuses to tax revenue, while a mismatched religion (as well as culture) provides a penalty (along with other problems that make them problematic).

It is possible to change the culture of a province if you place a popular and high-charisma governor in the province. You need not worry about Finesse for these governors, instead reserving them for the more valuable provinces. For the fastest conversion, find a governor with a Charisma of 7 (minimum 4 required), set a trade route from one of your most civilized provinces, and have a High priest with a finesse of 4 or more. A ruler with religious traits regarding moral behavior also helps, and theocratic governments also speed up the process. However, a large population tends to be harder to convert.

Temples
One of the first buildings is the Temple. If you construct them in your provinces that follow your state religion, it will increase the religious prestige, and therefore increase religious power as well.

Temples in a province that do not match your state's religion provide you with no benefit, and instead help other nations that have that religion.

Trade goods
Spices improve the religious prestige of a province controlling them, or trading for them.

Desecrating Holy Sites
In the diplomatic interface, you can disrupt opponent's religions. If a country has a religion different from your own, you can send an agent to ruin their holy site, and damage their religious power. This affects all countries following the given religion (which can include your own), and can cause opponent's omens to backfire.