Effects switching to Reform of Protestant?

[Akira112]

Are their any negative or positive effects to changing your state religion to Reformed or Protestant? I'm playing as Spain in 1500 with a number of colonies in the Americas.

[Lurker]

Well, it changes the amount of colonists you get each year (Protestant gets 0.5, while I think Reformed gets 1, same as Catholicism), as well as prestige, missionaries.. Plus, an idea you can get means you don't need a CB to declare war on heretics (those of the same type of religion (like Christianity), but different denomination), which can come in handy if you want to get some more land in Europe.

A huge negative effect is many nations that stay Catholic will lower your relations with them, a lot, and any alliances you have will disappear.

[Ishoss]

It also affects the Trade Effectiveness and Production effectiveness. You can see the effects by hovering over the cross of each religion in a region.

[Darkarbiter]

It also affects the Trade Effectiveness and Production effectiveness. You can see the effects by hovering over the cross of each religion in a region.

Yep, all the effects are listed there
Make sure to take note of the stability cost's in particular. Protestant is usually better overall than catholic apart from relations etc and the stuff below.
+the relations hit with every country that isn't the religion you are changing to in your religion group
changing from catholic to protestant hurts orthodox relations too (although not as much iirc)
+Relations bonus with countries of that religion
+as was said, the unam sanctum idea (or I'm not sure if it's called that in vanilla) that can allow you to attack nations of the other denominations and most other christian nations, especially if you choose a religion that isn't popular in the game (usually protestant isn't all THAT popular, although if it is reformed works too)
+Can't be papal controller if you aren't catholic

[Kanaric]

Reformed is my favorite religion in vanilla. The colonial growth bonus is extremely useful, especially when combined with land of opportunity. You can go after the "inhabitable" provinces with ease.

I either stay catholic or go reformed, protestant is not very good imo.

Both non protestant religions increase stability costs.