How Religion and Faith work in Civilization 7

There are several ways you can build up your people in Civilization 7, and one of the building blocks is your people’s Religion and Faith. These pave the path forward for your people’s beliefs, and can lead to other benefits to give you additional victory conditions throughout the game.

Developing your Religion will vary from previous Civilization games and has more meaning earlier in the game, during the Exploration Age. As you might expect, the Exploration Age is where you and your people are focused on exploring the world, spreading out to trade, meeting others, and discovering more beyond the development stage of their society. Here’s what you need to know about how Religion and Faith work in Civilization 7 and some notable changes compared to previous games in the series.

Everything to know about Religion and Faith in Civilization 7

In previous Civilization games, Religion was one of the handful of victory conditions that could win you a game. For some players, based on the type of leader they selected, it was one of the easiest ways to walk away as the victor. This has completely changed in Civ 7, with Religion no longer providing a victory. Instead, it feeds into one of the other four victory paths: Culture, Economic, Military or Science.

Although Religion has taken a backseat to the other paths of victory, it remains a heavy part of Civ 7, and not using it could prove difficult. The development team at Firaxis Games has said what happens now is players get to choose a unique Pantheon, which also occurred in Civ 6 during the Antiquity Age. The Antiquity Age takes place at the beginning of your game and serves as a building block to the rest of your game as you steadily branch out. While choosing the Pantheon is crucial to building up your Religion, it won’t play a huge part in expanding your empire.

Instead, you’ll notice Religion playing a much more significant role during the next phase of your Civ 7 game, during the Exploration Age. A player’s chosen Pantheon swaps for Religious Beliefs during the Exploration Age, transforming it into a much more powerful tool during this game phase. The Religious Beliefs you choose for your empire define your playstyle and can influence several aspects of how you receive bonuses and what benefits you get for building important religious monuments and structures within a city.

During the Exploration Age, you’ll have a higher chance of encountering more empires and other players as you expand beyond your safe borders. You’ll be investigating other continents and trading more often, and as players trade, they begin to share more about their society. The aspects you choose for your empire’s Religious Beliefs play a critical role during this point.

A significant change from Civ 6 and Civ 7 is how you expand your religion and convert other empires. Rather than simply converting the general populace, you’ll have to convert an empire’s urban and rural populations, which means getting close and spending more time on an opposing empire. You’ll build up your religious units during this phase, which should lead to helpful bonuses, such as relics to place in your Great Work slots. Building up your Great Work slots benefits the rest of the game.

Although some players are worried about the significant shift awar from Religion and Faith as a victory condition in Civ 7, the fact that it builds into other victory requirements makes it more useful for all players. Anyone who ignored trying to complete a Religious victory in Civ 6 now has more reason to pay attention to it, even if their empire is more geared toward earning an Economic or Military victory in Civ 7.