This is a bad design. Animism is a primitive state concept used to calculate the time of the first change of religious belief.

Animism is the default religion of Independent People. Something must be wrong for it to be spreading so much though unless there's some huge clump of Independents somewhere that converted a player.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I'm starting to believe that this is more an odd bug than anything else because there's also no name attached to the Animism religion when i'm hovering over it.

Either that or there is a huge and undiscovered independent tribe somewhere on my map that is the cause of my troubles.  Destroying that tribe should fix my problem.

(Finding them, though, is going to be a lot of fun because i opted for the largest map size before starting my game)

Let us know if you find the mysterious ancient Animist empire.

Haha, i will.

I think it comes from the changes, to religion in the patch.  The “main” religions don’t have their super spread anymore, so animism is the religion you get when there is no other religion pushing there. (also you need harbors to push it to islands)

Krikkitone wrote:

I think it comes from the changes, to religion in the patch.  The “main” religions don’t have their super spread anymore, so animism is the religion you get when there is no other religion pushing there. (also you need harbors to push it to islands)

That would make sense if i understood you correctly.

This whole thing started happening as soon as one of my ships discovered a huge new continent, the outposts i build there got converted to Animism almost immediately.

Looks like i opened Pandora's Box.

Eh, as long as my rivals are more inconvenienced by the whole thing than i am, i can live with this.

Raoh wrote:

Krikkitone wrote:

I think it comes from the changes, to religion in the patch.  The “main” religions don’t have their super spread anymore, so animism is the religion you get when there is no other religion pushing there. (also you need harbors to push it to islands)

That would make sense if i understood you correctly.

This whole thing started happening as soon as one of my ships discovered a huge new continent, the outposts i build there got converted to Animism almost immediately.

Looks like i opened Pandora's Box.

Eh, as long as my rivals are more inconvenienced by the whole thing than i am, i can live with this.

That's actually kind of awesome lol I also have a small sect of animism in my game lol religion is really hard to spread now without having a religious civ. Kind of cool.

Yutterh wrote:

Raoh wrote:

Krikkitone wrote:

I think it comes from the changes, to religion in the patch.  The “main” religions don’t have their super spread anymore, so animism is the religion you get when there is no other religion pushing there. (also you need harbors to push it to islands)

That would make sense if i understood you correctly.

This whole thing started happening as soon as one of my ships discovered a huge new continent, the outposts i build there got converted to Animism almost immediately.

Looks like i opened Pandora's Box.

Eh, as long as my rivals are more inconvenienced by the whole thing than i am, i can live with this.

That's actually kind of awesome lol I also have a small sect of animism in my game lol religion is really hard to spread now without having a religious civ. Kind of cool.

Lol, that kinda sucks.

On my side i managed to push back the tide of Animism, my outposts in the New World are slowly reverting back to my state religion for some reason.

Don't quote me on this but i think it started happening as soon as i build a harbor.  

Which would allow the religious pressure from the Homeland to find it's way to those outposts?  Your guess is as good as mine, i'm just glad it's happening.

Krikkitone wrote:

Harbors are needed for religious pressure to spread across water borders.

Religious pressure and Influence too, i've noticed.

To be honest, Harbors are pretty much overpowered.  I had an outpost that was about to flip sides because it was located next to several rival settlements and a city but the roles actually got reversed in one single turn once i build a Harbor next to it.  A few more turns and i can actually claim those enemy outposts (not that i will, my Empire is already starting to become unmanageable with all the territories i own right now).