Faith is a massive part of Crusader Kings 3. It dictates multiple aspects of life and can be a great help or a hindrance to your plans. It has rules for gender, marriage, the role of the clergy, and even the treatment of witches.
It makes sense, then, that you would want to embrace a faith that has rules that align with your goals. And if one doesn't exist, create one. Faith creation can be an expensive process that requires a lot of preparation and planning, but there are ways to make it easier.
Updated May 27, 2023: We've updated this guide to make sure it is in line with the current version of the game, and added details to make sure it's as useful as it can be.
How To Create A Faith
To begin creating a new faith, open the religion screen and click the Create New Faith button at the bottom.
The first thing to know about faith creation is that it costs piety which is earned over time, at a rate based mostly on your Learning skill. During faith creation, you will have to select the tenets that it will follow and the doctrines it will possess.
The game uses your current faith as the basis of your new faith and the cost of creation will increase depending on how different the new faith is in comparison.
An easy way to offset this cost would be to swap faiths for a close match, but this too costs a variable amount of piety.
Once you have selected your new faith's doctrines and tenets, you can name it, give it a description, and pay some piety. It's important to really think about your future plans when it's time to choose your tenets and doctrines, as they can drastically affect your gameplay. Here are some tips on selecting good ones:
- If your succession law divides your land amongst your children or all of your viable heirs, keep in mind that going for gender equality will make it more likely that you end up splitting up your nation in ways you may not have anticipated.
- Changing Clerical Appointment to Temporal allows you to choose your own Court Chaplain. This gives you greater control over your council and enables you to give the job to a powerful vassal in order to satisfy their needs. For further control and more flexibility, make the title revocable.
- Embracing Polygymy or Consorts & Concubines makes it far easier to create heirs for male characters, which is useful if you have concerns about succession or wish to create a huge dynasty.
- While it may be tempting for some players to legalize everything when it comes to Crime Doctrines, remember that crimes lead to secrets and secrets lead to Hooks - which can be very useful in controlling your realm.
- The Mendicant Preachers tenet will make converting the rest of your provinces quicker and is a good option for new faiths.
- The Pursuit of Power tenet is very expensive in terms of faith, but is fantastic for expansionist strategies as it grants powerful Casus Belli.
- Similarly, the Sacred Lies tenet is a great choice for players who like using Intrigue-centric strategies as it provides bonuses to Agent Acceptance.
There are some things that are important to keep in mind when considering creating a new faith.
- You can only create a new faith if you are at peace.
- You can only create a new faith if you are at least a duke - counts cannot create a new faith.
- When you create a new faith, you and your immediate family will automatically convert. Additionally, your realm capital will also convert.
- Your vassals can convert on their own, but you also have the option of trying to sway them to your new faith in exchange for money.
Creating a new faith in Ironman mode will earn you the It's not a Cult! achievement.
How To Afford It
Creating a faith can get extremely expensive if it is drastically different from your old one. Luckily, there are some things you can do to boost your piety gains.
- If you have the luxury of being able to choose your heir, you may want to pick one that will be great at earning piety. Things to look out for are a high Learning skill (which directly affects your monthly piety gain) and the Zealous or Humble traits. If you have a faith that allows you to pick your own Court Chaplain, giving that job to your heir will also increase their piety before inheriting.
- Having virtuous traits as opposed to sinful traits is also useful. Which traits are considered virtuous or sinful depends on your current religion - you can tell virtuous traits by the shining green border around them on your character screen.
- Going on a pilgrimage and acquiring the Pilgrim perk will also increase piety gain. Try to do this as often as possible (once every 15 years) and go on the longest pilgrimages available to you for the highest instant piety gain. Muslim characters can also undertake the Hajj for similar results.
- The Church and State perk from the Theologian tree of the Learning lifestyle increases your piety gain by 100 percent if your current faith has Lay Clergy. If the faith is Pluralist, the Defender of the Faith perk in the same tree increases piety gain by 20 percent.
- Owning certain provinces can also provide a boost in piety. These are either the holy sites of your current religion or the locations of famous buildings of worship such as Canterbury Cathedral or Notre Dame.
- Taking the decision to go Celibate will also increase piety.
The Theologian perk tree is extremely beneficial to characters who wish to create a new faith. Not only are there perks that can increase piety gain (as detailed above), completing the tree provides the very powerful Theologian trait which increases piety gain and your character's Learning skill.
Perhaps the most useful element of the perk tree, however, is the Prophet perk which reduces faith creation cost by half.