With the release of Crusader Kings 3, the game got a completely new look and UI. The faith and piety system in particular got plenty of reworks and changes in the sequel. The customization has been completely revamped, making the whole game much more open to exploitation. The Crusader Kings 3 faith customization offers a lot more things to tweak as well.
You can even make your own custom faith in Crusader Kings 3. That process involves just as much complexity and roleplay nonsense as you would expect. Each religion in the game has a bunch of mechanics attached to it, and players will have to manage conflict between the various religions, while also trying to keep their religious heads happy. If you don’t manage your faith properly, you will start to make more enemies, and it will make your diplomacy much more difficult.
Also, creating a faith is a heresy under your main religion and will incur a penalty for your diplomacy ratings with members of your old faith.
How to Make a Custom Faith
You may only make a custom faith once per character lifetime, so save it for when you really need it. There’s a Piety cost as well. Access the relevant menu from the main Faith window. If you want to reduce the cost, pick the Prophet perk from the Theologian tree in the Learning lifestyle. This cuts the Piety cost of creating a new faith in half
To make your faith, all you need to do is enter the religion tab by clicking on Piety in the top right. From there, a new menu will open with the option to create your faith at the bottom of the menu. The menu that opens up will allow you to set titles and adjectives for your custom faith, as well as setting options for Virtues and Sins within your followers. Any character that has these traits will get a bonus or penalty depending. This can of course open up the game to tons of metagaming with your own dynasty.
When you create your Faith, you’re going to select the tenets and various elements of the religion within the game. Anyone who subscribes to your beliefs will have to follow these tenets that you set. You will need to spend Piety to get the faith formed though, so keep that in mind. Also, each faith must be a derivative of an already existing faith. That means if you’re in a game where Norse religions don’t exist, you need to reform that main religious element first.
There are some faiths that can’t be reformed though. If a certain faith has been removed from the game via some mechanic, it has to be reformed via decisions and events to become a possible faith.
There’s also the conflicts to take into account. Any religion you create will inherit the relations it has with other faiths. The old faith and yourself will gain a casus belli as well, so be prepared for some war.
If you’re in the mood for more Crusader Kings 3 content, why not check out some of the other guides we have. Need to change your capital? How about knowing what each building and upgrade does? Maybe you need to gain some Piety,
Relations Between Faiths
Every faith in Crusader Kings 3 views every other faith in the world one of four ways:
- Righteous: Any religion in this state with another group will be in tandem with their various allies. This applies most often to sub-factions of Islam.
- Astray: Faiths with this diplomatic state will have similar goals but will diverge in notable ways. They will not often come to the aid of each other except in times of strife.
- Hostile: These are the start of the most hostile relations between faith groups. This can apply to any main faith or sub-faith. Valid hostile targets will be subject to special actions like Holy Wars, attacks by Holy Orders, and even assassinations and other subterfuge. Expect a penalty to your diplomatic efforts with hostile powers. Faiths hostile to one another can inter-marry.
- Evil: One step beyond Hostile, and will be openly opposed to all their goals. This historical hostilities between Christianity and Islam will be the most obvious example of these relations. No inter-faith marriage is allowed between faiths viewed as Evil.