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The results of sacrificing faith seem quite complex mathematically. On the one hand, being able to get more faith in the pool for the same points is great, because it increases productivity. On the other hand, you spend days with much less faith than you would have if you hadn't sacrificed it in the first place. I used to be at 30% more efficiency when I sacrificed my pool, and the efficiency loss is quite noticeable. The diminishing returns of sacrificing, and the opportunity cost of not building magnetos, factories etc. earlier (because the materials for them come 30% slower after the sacrifice) make the matter even more complex.

So, is there a clear "winning" strategy? When, or how often, is it good to sacrifice faith?

As a side question, the text says "bonus will carry over through resets", but the sacrifice itself has a label called "reset" and then there is the possibility to reset the whole game. I assume that the faith bonus stays through faith sacrifice resets but not through game resets, is this the case?

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2 Answers 2

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If you still care about your production of other resources, the optimal strategy is probably to sacrifice your faith immediately before resetting the game as a whole, and only then. Sacrificing your faith at any other time (especially if you've sacrificed it before) will give you a large hit to your general production in exchange for a small boost to your total faith generation, which probably isn't worth it.

If you really only care about sacrificing as much faith as possible in the end, then it gets murkier, and as you said, the math is complex. The only thing I'm sure of is that you shouldn't sacrifice your faith if the production bonus from your faith is lower than your faith bonus due to sacrificing, unless you're about to reset the game as a whole. I would probably sacrifice once my faith production bonus is double my faith sacrifice bonus (but again, only if I'm willing to cut most of my other production to speed up faith generation).

Edit: At some point after this answer was written, the faith bonus was nerfed: it now begins to suffer diminishing returns at 750%, and is hard capped at 1000%. If you're able to store enough faith to quickly get your faith bonus over 750% after sacrificing faith, then it makes sense to begin sacrificing faith often. (The Apocrypha bonus has no such diminishing returns.)

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  • Since your faith bonus increases the rate you generate faith in the first place, wouldn't it essentially only be a good idea when you're generating faith much too quickly for you to use up? This would depend on how often you check the game to use your faith.
    – B T
    Jul 13, 2015 at 22:52
  • @BT The two bonuses multiply, and they each have diminishing returns, so it pays to keep them roughly equal to each other.
    – Brilliand
    Jul 13, 2015 at 22:57
  • Ah interesting.
    – B T
    Jul 13, 2015 at 23:19
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As a side question, the text says "bonus will carry over through resets", but the sacrifice itself has a label called "reset" and then there is the possibility to reset the whole game. I assume that the faith bonus stays through faith sacrifice resets but not through game resets, is this the case?

Every time you reset your faith, you will receive special bonus called faithRatio. Higher faithRatio makes your faith pool grow faster.

This faithRatio stays accumulated forever, regardless of the game resets.

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  • I know you are the developer, but this doesn't seem to answer the whole question. Specifically, the paragraph before the one you quoted seems like the real meat of the question, and the part you quoted specifically starts with "As a side question"
    – murgatroid99
    Oct 14, 2014 at 21:03
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    >I know you are the developer, but this doesn't seem to answer the whole question.< I think it's useless for me to answer about personal startegy when other people are infinitely better in playing this game :)
    – bloodrizer
    Oct 15, 2014 at 19:28
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    That's actually what comments are for. Your answer sounds like a perfect candidate for that.
    – Frank
    Oct 15, 2014 at 19:32
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    I disagree with this being declared a bad answer. It has never been the goal of Stack Exchange to promote a "one answer covering everything in the question" format, although of course answerers try to achieve this, as it tends to bring more reputation. Partial answers are very welcome too, there should be no "answer all or nothing" pressure, and I explicitly asked this subquestion, so it's not a case of not addressing the main question.
    – rumtscho
    Oct 30, 2014 at 17:33
  • Is this a hidden attribute @bloodrizer and still in effect? Or is that value the % bonus you see next to the Praise the sun! button?
    – Nitrodist
    Sep 21, 2018 at 4:07

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