Jerusalem

Strategy guide

Every city of yours with a Holy Site radiates religious pressure like a holy city — 4× strength within 10 tiles. Your religion spreads itself across your empire and into neighbors without spending a single missionary charge. Settle Holy Site cities near foreign borders to convert passively.

Best civs & plans

A religious-victory cornerstone — especially for Byzantium and Spain. Even culture civs founding a religion for its beliefs get free upkeep on their faith.

Envoy plan

For anyone founding a religion, Jerusalem is a three-envoy priority that should be settled by the time your first Holy Site finishes, because pressure accumulates every turn and early conversion snowballs. The religious envoy tiers help on the way there: the first adds faith in the capital and every Shrine, which speeds the Great Prophet race itself. Religious AI leaders will fight hard for Jerusalem, so expect to sit at five or six envoys to keep it; the six-envoy tier at least returns faith from every worship building. Non-religious players should still consider one envoy for the Shrine faith and otherwise let a rival spend their diplomatic capital here.

Value by era

Jerusalem's window opens the moment your religion is founded and is widest in the classical and early medieval eras, when neighbors have few Holy Sites of their own and no religion to push back. Quadruple pressure from three or four Holy Site cities converts your empire in a few dozen turns and leaks steadily into any foreign city within ten tiles. Through the renaissance the bonus shifts from offense to maintenance: it holds converted cities against missionary waves without spending faith. In the industrial era and beyond, rival religions have entrenched, borders have thickened, and pressure alone will not flip a distant capital, so late suzerainty is only worth it to defend a religious victory already in progress rather than to start one.

Pitfalls and how to protect it

The bonus multiplies pressure from cities that already follow your religion and hold a Holy Site, so a Holy Site in a city still practicing a foreign faith spreads that faith instead. Convert your own cities first with a missionary or two before relying on passive spread. Another oversight is placing Holy Sites in the empire's interior; pressure has a range, and the cities that matter for foreign conversion are the ones near borders. Jerusalem draws attention from every religious civ, and a rival suzerain gains the same weapon against you, so losing the lead is worse than never holding it. Keep a diplomatic reserve, and if a hostile AI captures Jerusalem outright, liberating it is one of the few cases where a religious player should raise an army.

Envoy bonuses

• 1 envoy+1 Faith in your capital and in each Shrine you own.
• 3 envoys+2 Faith in each Temple and each Consulate you own.
• 6 envoys+3 Faith in each worship building and each Chancery you own.

Envoy bonuses are shared by every city-state of the same type.

Other Religious city-states

• Armagh
• Chinguetti
• Kandy
• La Venta
• Nazca
• Vatican City
• Yerevan

Related guides

• City-States and Envoys: Where Your Influence Should GoWhere envoys come from, how to spend the first handful, which city-state types match each victory plan, how to win and keep suzerainty against the AI, and when conquering a city-state is the right call.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
• Diplomatic Victory: Earning and Spending FavorA working plan for the Gathering Storm diplomatic victory: where Diplomatic Favor actually comes from, how World Congress sessions and votes turn into victory points, which emergencies, competitions and wonders matter, how to keep alliances alive, and when to spend favor versus hold it against a rival's lead.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
• Early District Planning: The First 100 TurnsHow to read city sites for future adjacency, decide between settling for yields now or reserving tile clusters, and know when a planned layout should be abandoned.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03