I decided to shake up my pattern of playing little but the Malakim and Ljosalfar, and tried out a game as the Grigori. I've played them before, but generally those games didn't get too far (both because of other gaming opertunities and because new patches often come out in the middle of a game...). I'm normally a very religion-oriented player, grabbing the Order and using it to its full extent. However, in this game I decided to see what it would be like to play without any religion, and Cassiel's Civ is a good way to try that.

I chose a large FfH Fractal (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=183924) map, with low sealevel and ten other Civs. Speed was normal, starting era was ancient, difficulty was noble (I wanted to see how it played without handicaps). I decided to avoid war as I wanted to see how the game would run without the unpredictabilities of warfare. I know Branding and Melusine could help me wipe out the opposition, but I opted to just see how peaceful empires without religion would run. Here's the save, frozen at year 276, the point where I decided that proceeding further would serve no purpose, as I had already thorougly surpassed the opposition.
137330

There are a lot of differences between a Civ with a religion and one without, but I'll focus on the main point that people point out, which is also the point at which I was most surprised.

I found that lacking a religion did not cause the Grigori to stagnate for lack of happycap bonuses. The followers of religions get to increase their happicaps sooner, and to a greater extent, but the Grigori were able to steadily increase their happicap at a rate which let their cities steadily expand. In fact, I would even venture to say that their steady happicap increase, if not as powerful as the immediate +3 from having religion, God King, and the Religion civic, was still funner to play. I'll repeat this for emphasis: The steadily increasing happicap of a civilization without religion is funner to play under than the immediate abolition of the happicap under a religion.

After playing this game, I am thoroughly convinced that Kael & Co. should make religions give far less of a happicap increase than they currently do. Religion has many, many benefits that make it worthwhile, without adding a happicap increase that allows a Civ to get an exponential lead on its rivals. Both the balance and the "fun-ness" aspects of the game would be improved if religion took its benefits elsewhere than the happicap.

Go ahead and play a bit on the map. Take a look at my empire and tell me what you think about both the game and my conclusions from it. The graphs section is pretty interesting.

After playing this game, I am thoroughly convinced that Kael & Co. should make religions give far less of a happicap increase than they currently do. Religion has many, many benefits that make it worthwhile, without adding a happicap increase that allows a Civ to get an exponential lead on its rivals. Both the balance and the "fun-ness" aspects of the game would be improved if religion took its benefits elsewhere than the happicap.

Can you provide more specific recommendations? What exactly would you recommend changing.

Hm... specific recommendations are always tough. If it'll save you some trouble brainstorming, though, I'll take a stab at it.

I came up with the idea a while back of switching God King and Organized Religion. This would be bad news for our multiplayer games, but good news in for balance in general. Perhaps shuffling the civic costs to compensate for the likely state of your empire when you get these civics would be good, too.

I don't like the way that each temple gives happiness with incense (or does the Veil temple give that with reagents? Not sure...). I'd say restrict that effect to the Pagan Temple. But that's just my two cents, it's not a gamebreaker. If you do this, it might be good to give some of the bonuses back to temples that you took away, or find new bonuses for them.

It might even be a good idea to remove the default +1 :) from having a state religion in a city. I'd say either do away with this, or eliminate the Religion cultural value civic, as virtually everyone has either adopted this civic or can adopt this civic once religions are being spread.

Let me point out that if you were to implement all of these ideas (doubtful), then here's what religion would give you:
1) Early +25% :hammers: in each city with the religion.
2) Temples that had a unique function, but no effect on happicap.
3) Only +1 :) from having the religion in the city, either from Religion cultural value civic or from innate bonus.
4) Easy, obelisk-less source of culture for cities to get the fat cross (by the innate :culture: benefit of religion).

And that's not even including the benefits you get for having the holy city (high culture, potential wealth/mana giving building, espionage benefits), or the diplomatic modifiers. How's this for balanced?

Remove the happy bonus from God king.
The production and commerce are sufficient, and since it comes at the same time as religion, its a +4 happy bonus to cities with state religion (lose naturalism penalty, god king, religion civics, and the religion itself and maybe temples.)

i like the religion happiness bonuses myself, otherwise the only good option is guardian of nature or else be stuck with size 4 cities until the mid to late game

i like the religion happiness bonuses myself, otherwise the only good option is guardian of nature or else be stuck with size 4 cities until the mid to late game

Luxury resources... carnivals...

There are early game options to raise happycap. Not easy, true, but they are there.

I personally think that the God King civic comes too early, making it overpowered and a must get.

I personally think that the God King civic comes too early, making it overpowered and a must get.

I have to agree on that, after all it's nearly equivalent to Bureaucracy (sp?) in Vanilla. And in FfH you get it right away. What do you care about increased city maintenance when you only have 2 small citys?

Remove the happy bonus from God king.
The production and commerce are sufficient, and since it comes at the same time as religion, its a +4 happy bonus to cities with state religion (lose naturalism penalty, god king, religion civics, and the religion itself and maybe temples.)
I support this as well. Lately, I've found God King to be one of those civics that is not a choice - you must choose it (in the early to mid game).

- Niilo

the happiness makes sense for it though, and it makes it a better civic if you have religion, but still decent ("a must have") without it.

i definately don't think the civic needs changing, but it might be wise to move it to a further tech.

I often never switch from God King, even in the Late Game.
The extra Gold and Hammers are just too nice.

i think the problem is with the other civics in that category being unattractive. i still don't like city states enough to ever choose it (the negatives dont beat the positives for me, so id rather have despotism). aristocracy is more negative than good as well.
and hereditary rule and republic are too far down the line

4) Easy, obelisk-less source of culture for cities to get the fat cross (by the innate :culture: benefit of religion).

You also get that bonus if you don't have a state religion. Which once again has as consequence, having multiple religions is beneficial even for the Grigori. :(

There are a lot of differences between a Civ with a religion and one without, but I'll focus on the main point that people point out, which is also the point at which I was most surprised.

I found that lacking a religion did not cause the Grigori to stagnate for lack of happycap bonuses. The followers of religions get to increase their happicaps sooner, and to a greater extent, but the Grigori were able to steadily increase their happicap at a rate which let their cities steadily expand. In fact, I would even venture to say that their steady happicap increase, if not as powerful as the immediate +3 from having religion, God King, and the Religion civic, was still funner to play. I'll repeat this for emphasis: The steadily increasing happicap of a civilization without religion is funner to play under than the immediate abolition of the happicap under a religion.

After playing this game, I am thoroughly convinced that Kael & Co. should make religions give far less of a happicap increase than they currently do. Religion has many, many benefits that make it worthwhile, without adding a happicap increase that allows a Civ to get an exponential lead on its rivals. Both the balance and the "fun-ness" aspects of the game would be improved if religion took its benefits elsewhere than the happicap.

I find byself agreeing with your bolded point, even before I load your save file. That is the goal after all ... a more fun game. And sometimes it is possible to add by subtraction. In this case, subtracting happycap raises from Religion is likely to add challenge and fun. I guess that makes me biased FWIW.

I am interested to hear how you raised your happycaps. Was it through animal capture? My first game ever of Ver II, I got Grigori assigned as my random civ. I spent a lot of effort rounding up the many many animals roaming the continent. So many that I overdid it. The captured animals were costing gold as though they were an invasion force in enemy territory. That drove my R&D down, and 10,000 Drowns soon arrived to make matters worse.

So I'm hoping you did not have to overly rely on animal captures+Carnivals for your happycap management. That is a very splashy method. It's a really cool game feature, but it is not reliable enough to build a civilization on its back. The roots of the tech tree will need a little fiddling (and there's nothing wrong with that.)

Swapping God King and Organized Religion seems like an obvious starting move.

The Brewery is already attached to Crafting. It just needs to be made useful to a fledgling civ. It is simply not useful under Crafting at 300 :hammers: and the river requirement further reduces its utility. Make it a 90 :hammers: building, perhaps +1:) and +1:culture:? People flock to where there's :beer: sorta thing.

I'm thinnking that moving Leaves over to the Agriculture/Animal Handling line both makes 'more sense' that the Crafting line when it comes down to Learning About Nature, and it requires civs to diversity more early on. I'm not sure this suggestion is strictly on-topic, but what the hey.

Chand's Pagan Temple idea seems solid, if it is programmable. Basically, Pagan Temples would give +1:), until a state religion was declared. Then they would lose their +1:) function. That provides an early leg up, without altering mid-game/endgame dynamics at all.

In general, a few secular happycap boosters are needed early on, plus, perhaps, moving back the dawn of the Five Religions somewhat. I agree with Chand. I honestly think the game will gain by a bit of subtraction. Nice thread here.

I am interested to hear how you raised your happycaps.

My last game was with Grigori, and I raised my happycap by capturing other civs' resources with my giants and heroes. :mischief:

theres an easier way to raise your happycap than religion, it requires less research and can provide more happiness.

research the following (tech cost):
agriculture(100)>festivals(160)&animalhusbandry(160)
exploration(100)>hunting(160)
total = 680 science
which is less than a religion which is:
ancientchants(100)>mysticism(160)
tech1(100)>tech2(160)>tech3(320) <---changes depending on which of the three early ones you get, but the costs stay the same
total = 840 science

with carnivals and hunters and subdue animal, you can easily go out and beat lions, tigers, bears, wolves, panthers and spiders, which will all grant +1 happy (spiders through its silk, which will affect all your connected cities) for a total increase of +6 for your happycap. much better than any religions benefits. and grigori really benefit from the hunter line for their heroes (easy 7 strength ranger heroes later), so i dont feel too badly for them missing out on religion.

You also get that bonus if you don't have a state religion. Which once again has as consequence, having multiple religions is beneficial even for the Grigori.
The Grigori can't make temples so I assume you are talking about the +1 culture from a religion being in a city. Only the OO, Leaves and order give +1 culture and its difficult for relgion to spread into their cities to begin with and they can't manual do it themselves. If your talking about the temples themselves I definatly disagree with you. +2 culture say is much less important then +1 happyness. I felt that there is far too much +% to culture in FFh rather then static bonuses.

I really like the idea of moving god king. Later on it might be questionable to take it as the negatives might have some effect. Maybe even make the distance penelty more severe. It would be a good civic for an underdog civilization to come back.

Don't worry, Unser, I didn't capture a single animal in that game. Raising your happicap is pretty easy if you know what you're doing.

1) Resources. You get access to a lot of them early on, compared to vanilla Civ.

2) Festivals. These are the most obvious (aside from resources), but they're nice to have.

3) Breweries. They take a lot of hammers, but they're doable, especially for up to three :).

4) Pagan Temples. +1 :) for incense is useful for when you start by it. Incense by itself doesn't give a happiness bonus in FfH.

5) Forges. The potential happiness and hammer bonuses from them generally outweigh the unhealthiness.

6) Inns. An extra trade route, and more happiness from wine.

7) Public Baths. They're later on the tech tree, but if you go for them early, you'll be rewarded for it (three smiley faces is awesome to have from one cheap building). Going for medicine next is great, as you also get the useful Grigori Medic from it.

That's as far as I got. With that many sources of happiness, who needs animals? Or religion for that matter?

Thinking about this last night, I realized something. In vanilla Civ, the bonuses are such that you can only get a happicap of 20 in the modern era, realistically. In FfH, it's a piece of cake to get it long before then. Let me outline what seem to be the main goals of Civ.

1) Survival. Pretty easy in vanilla Civ, slightly less so in FfH. But you don't necessarily have to have the player be in danger of death from barbs through the whole game. Losing a tech or builder victory is a loss all the same.

2) Infrastructure. After making sure that your empire won't die against the barbs or whatever enemies you have, you must improve the tiles around your cities. This ranks very close to number three.

3) Expansion. One city can only get so powerful (unless you happen to be a Kuriotate) before reaching its max. More cities mean a higher maximum to your empire's power.

4) Happiness. Every single point of happiness you get means, in conjunction with enough food, means you get a potential extra worked tile per city. Very important to keep up in the tech race.

5) Victory. Once you've ensured your survival, built on every worked tile, expanded so you're cheek-by-jowl with your neighbors, and got your happicap as close to 20 as the game will let you, it's time to make a move toward winning.

Let's see how FfH does here.

Survivial: the funnest part, according to many people. FfH has tons of features that let the survival against the barbs be fun and challenging.

Infrastructure: not quite so good here. By year 150, your improvements are as good as they're going to get. In vanilla Civ, you had late-game things like Free Speech, State Property, and the Printing Press to make your already built improvements better. FfH just has sanitation and a few techs down the machinery line. Few people build lots of workshops, windmills, and water mills; and terriforming makes farms obsolete.

Expansion: tougher to do in FfH, as the barbarians are much tougher than in vanilla Civ, even when not raging. Tougher is good, in this case, as it keeps the wilderness open, leading to a protracted survival phase, which is fun.

Happiness: here's the main point of this study, and where FfH falls on its face. You can easily get your happicap up into the mid-teens by the early-mid game, and it can shoot far above 20 after that. Once your happicap is as high as you need it to be, that's when you're supposed to start driving for victory. I strongly believe that the happicap increases must come much later and more spread apart to fix this.

Victory: I know we're not into the phase where this will be focused on, yet, so I'm wearing my kiddy gloves. Still, something to aim for after you've maxed out your empire would be nice. Slow stagnation and forced war as you knock down AI empires one-by-one gets old after a while.

That turned out to be much longer than I anticipated. I think it turned out pretty well, though. Do you agree with my analysis, here?

Thats a great analysis, both of the Grigori and of the aspects of FfH in general... It can lead to some good improvments :thumbsup:

Happiness: here's the main point of this study, and where FfH falls on its face. You can easily get your happicap up into the mid-teens by the early-mid game, and it can shoot far above 20 after that. Once your happicap is as high as you need it to be, that's when you're supposed to start driving for victory. I strongly believe that the happicap increases must come much later and more spread apart to fix this.

Do you play philosophical or financial most of the time? Personally I do not feel an overabundance of (affordable) happiness when I'm playing a specialist game and maximizing food production.

A specialist-centric game is considerably less efficient than a :commerce: centric one, both in vanilla Civ and much more heavily in FfH. Specialists are at their most useful when you have a city near a food resource or two in the mid-game. Othwise, it's always better to build cottages, with farms to feed them where necessary.

When I say there's an overabundance of happiness, I don't mean that you can necessarily rocket up to 20 population from the very start. I mean that you'll do all of your population expansion in the first half of the game, and spend the second half of the game looking in vain for some objective to fufill.

without religions i dont often see happiness for a long time, since though theres many happiness options, they rarely coincide with good units unless you do a religious path.

about resources giving happiness, i find this much more difficult than in vanilla, which is why religion is so important, if you're the underdog, just getting a religion spread to you can allow you to do some catching up, but im not seeing it as increasing your happycap in some unbalancing manner (+1 happiness if you pick a particular civic that is best for few cities, and +1 from another civic who's only purpose is to add +1 happiness for religion, and +1 from the religion itself).

A specialist-centric game is considerably less efficient than a :commerce: centric one, both in vanilla Civ and much more heavily in FfH. Specialists are at their most useful when you have a city near a food resource or two in the mid-game. Othwise, it's always better to build cottages, with farms to feed them where necessary.

I agree with this when talking late-game. This is why the increase of the GP threshold should decrease the more GPs you get.

about resources giving happiness, i find this much more difficult than in vanilla, which is why religion is so important, if you're the underdog, just getting a religion spread to you can allow you to do some catching up, but im not seeing it as increasing your happycap in some unbalancing manner (+1 happiness if you pick a particular civic that is best for few cities, and +1 from another civic who's only purpose is to add +1 happiness for religion, and +1 from the religion itself).

+1 happiness from a civic that is the most useful civic for the early game, +1 from a low upkeep civic that you get from a tier-2 tech, +1 from just having the religion, +2 from religious discipline, +1 for every temple built with incense. You'll generally have two of those right away, two more from going down the most efficient religion path, and another by investing a few hammers. Tell me that's not a lot of happiness.

without religions i dont often see happiness for a long time, since though theres many happiness options, they rarely coincide with good units unless you do a religious path.

Yes, the religious path gets you high happiness, good units, and probably a hero or two as well. FfH is about specializing. It's not about taking one tech path until you max out your happicap. You have to choose what you want to emphasize. The current system of religions doesn't do that.

Sureshot, I'd really rather not get into another one of these arguments with you. The fact is that the incredibly high increases in happicap that religion leads to break the flow of FfH. Remove this, and the game can follow the path of a good game of Civ while still retaining its unique flavor.

There can be other ways of increasing happiness in the later game. The vanilla market was a huge asset to get, because it doubled the happicap increase you got from each luxury resource. Buildings like that ought to be included later on in the game. Other methods should also be considered.

religions do grant a lot of good things, but they tend to be risky, its not a sureshot that you'll get it. its a gamble that if you win will pay out nicely in several areas. though i can't say i ever use many of those other religious civics like discipline. biggest problem with godking is the other civics just aren't good, not only compared to godking, but to despostism i still dont consider them useful. in my experiences its only +3 happiness (i seldom get incense), which is the same value as a single cheap building.

personally id rather see the other units having their techs cost less, to make the other units easier to get (making them more efficient strategies than religion for getting good units early). and godking needs better competitors, the other civics in its category are all huge tradeoffs (losing 1 food is not worth 2 commerce, and losing % culture is not worth losing a % of a part of a type of maintenance).

You're arguing my points for me, here.
religions do grant a lot of good things, but they tend to be risky, its not a sureshot that you'll get it. its a gamble that if you win will pay out nicely in several areas. though i can't say i ever use many of those other religious civics like discipline. biggest problem with godking is the other civics just aren't good, not only compared to godking, but to despostism i still dont consider them useful. in my experiences its only +3 happiness (i seldom get incense), which is the same value as a single cheap building.

Yes, religion is anything but a sure shot. Let's say Bob and Joe are going for Fellowship of Leaves. Bob gets to the tech first, so his happycap is suddenly three higher than Joe's at the very least. Joe goes for Kilmorph, but because he was shafted while going for Leaves, Frank founds it, as Jessie founds OO. And because the Order and the Veil are so far down the tech path, Joe can found Order and Jessie can found the Veil, and what might have been a 10 player game now has only three real contenders, with the other seven players being nothing but vassals.

You might say that Joe and the other shafted players will get the religions by spread, even if they don't found it. How, I ask you? The founders know that their +3 (or more likely +4 or 5 by now) happicap increase will win the game for them. They're going to close borders, keep their thanes/disciples/zealots to themselves, and pull ahead, leaving the seven other players in the dust. By the time the religion spreads to them, they'll be an era behind, a 100 turn head start for the founders.

But balance isn't the only issue here. How fun is it when your cities are as powerful as they're going to be by year 300? You've built all the infrastructure you can, you've expanded all the way up to your opponents' borders, you've used druids to upgrade every single tile in your empire. What more is there to do? Wipe out your foes one by one, that's what. Empire building is over by year 300, and it's just a war game after that.

Even if there were buildings tacked on to later techs that increased happiness or hammer production or whatever, what good do they do? You already have all your cities at size 20, working every tile, and you've built a big enough army to ensure that you won't die. What's left? Well, I would say that you'd be racing the AI to victory, but victory is nothing short of wiping out all of your opponents. We're back where we started.

I don't want FfH to turn out this way. There's so much cool stuff and flavor being added, but it's all for nothing if the gameplay functionality remains stagnant. A friend of mine got burnt on FfH last week, and he doesn't care about all the cool new features I tell him about. It's just so unsatisfying to build an empire and, as a conclusion, just have an anticlimactic assimilation of nearby empires to finish up. FfH stops being fun after turn 300.

well gambling and losing is never fun ;)

unless i have an advantage, i dont go for a religion. grabbing festivals is like a subpar runes thats a guarrantee and comes earlier, grabbing construction is a quick way to get in the conquest game, grabbing rangers will make you impervious to anyone elses religious units for a while.

festivals allows lots of happiness (+1 from carnival, and up to +6 on top of that from animal captures), and early expansion. and one thing to note, once you reach your happycap, thats an ideal time to start making new cities, if you have a higher happycap, you delay that process. though also, i think the 20 happycap you mention is more important in a cottage spamming strategy, since then you arent likely to have food for greater cities, with sanitation farms on good terrain you can manage much bigger cities with tons of specialists (but you prefer commerce to specialists as youve said)

i definately agree that if everyone goes for religions then the ones who do get them will have a near game winning advantage unless those who lost the gamble have some good tactics and tricks up their sleeves.

i do know however, that i've played some games where i just didnt feel confident i could get the religions before they were all snatched up (usually whenever my starter tech is agriculture), so i go for festivals and expand, and then work on fleshing out my empire and getting some nice units. playing it safe is a good strategy as well (in many of our games gamblers have lost big, things like dying early or getting beaten to the religion by 1 turn).

i do agree that religion is worth trying for, but i don't think its the only viable strategy (and personally i dont find it the best way to get happiness, just the quickest if you win the gamble). i think theres lots of viable strategies, and the only surefire way of doing badly, is to gamble and lose often, heh

I don't play on the same difficulties as you guys (I've been playing on Emperor lately) but I've never considered going for an early religion to be a gamble. I have never been beaten to my chosen religion by the AI, and only once have I been beaten to it in multiplayer, and that person got both hunting and ancient chants in goody huts in the first four turns.

You say religions are a gamble with a huge payoff, but the simple truth is that, if you're going for Leaves, the risk isn't even close to enough to counter the payoff. You've got Hunting already, so you're well on your way to rangers, with whom you can get all the happiness you could want.

well its been said you will lose if you go for the religion and someone else gets it, id say losing is a pretty big risk.

about you feeling like you can always get it..... .... .... .... ..... ....... ...... just to reiterate, if theres 8 people in a game, not all of them can found a religion, confidence won't save you, the other players can just as easily get those techs from huts, its equal and as such a gamble. if you're talking SP, then yes, the AI isn't human, it just can't compete.

My point, though, Sureshot, is that losing ISN'T that big a risk, because aside from Way of the Forest, every tech you get on the way to Fellowship is inherently useful.

The same is true of Runes and Overlords. If you don't get the religion, you simply make your strategy one that capitalizes on your current research achievements.

The payoff is far too high for the small amount of risk entailed in a few or even a few dozen turns of research.

sorry if im confused, but if it isnt a big risk to lose it, why is it a insurmountable loss if you lose it, and how does that not directly contradict that its a big risk to lose it? heh

personally with festivals i can expand faster earlier without risk (and then going for education, code of laws, and currency) and then i normally have a big economic empire thats able to outdo the religious civs.

Heh, at the moment I'm playing an agnostic Calabim game (for the record, I like to play Monarch level normally, but playing in noble often yields more meaningful results for tests), as Alexis, and it's running pretty fun. I'm not going to found any religions, adopt any religions, or found any temples.

As I understand it, 2.016 isn't coming out anytime soon. Any chance that Kael & Co. will give some of these suggestions a try? Heck, I might edit FfH a bit and see how they feel, myself. I've always thought it's a bit rude to go modifying FfH instead of playing it the way that Kael & Co. have spent so long designing it towards, but if it's for testing purposes... maybe.

Let me also say this plainly so my opinion on the matter is known: I think there are plenty of sources of happiness in the early game. My gripe is with the additional sources of happiness that religion brings about. I think FfH's early game would be quite fine without these sources. If the religion happiness bonuses were moved to later techs (as most Civs are going to have some religion or another by that point), I'd count it as a big step in the right direction.

well im guessing you dont wish to address my issues or my ways of playing, so i'll just say i don't think you're wrong for your style of play (and likely many others).

i just like there being a tech gamble in the game, and i believe there are more viable tech choices for becoming a powerhouse where expected result (probability times payout) is just as high or higher for nonreligious paths.

i just like there being a tech gamble in the game, and i believe there are more viable tech choices for becoming a powerhouse where expected result (probability times payout) is just as high or higher for nonreligious paths.

So, you're saying that, if you invest in the metalworking (or maybe recon) section of the tree, you can take over rival empires, and thus build a more powerful empire yourself? That might be somewhat difficult to do if the target empire has invested in religion and has a Rosier or Bambur to deal with you.

I'm not sure where you're disagreeing with me, here. Are you saying that early religion doesn't provide a massive hapiness bonus early on? Are you saying that abolishing the happicap in the early-midgame is funner than having to raise it through technology and infrastructure? You don't seem to be agreeing with my suggested courses of action, but I don't see where you disagree with the conclusions that I've made.

Early religion isn't a gamble. It's a mechanic by which three civilizations get a massive boost while the others simply don't. In the middle-upper difficulty levels, you're guaranteed to get them if you go for them exclusively, barring any bizarre hut pops by the AI.

But again, the balance of early religion isn't my main gripe. I believe that the happiness bonuses cause the mid-late game to have no point, no objective to work towards. Do you disagree with me here?

The solution is to make happyness and health to be much tougher to get (or to come at much later stages of the game) so you can have only pop 6 cities until year 500 or so even with a religion (just an example)

I think that hardening the game would be a good step, like get rid of Civic bonus to happyness (Religion, God King, and the other religious one) take away happyness from temples (incense, reagents, etc) and overall dimish the happyness givem by normal buildings unti later in the tech tree.

first off, i agree with you on pretty much everything you've said as to what does happen and what can happen.

the only thing i can be said to disagree with is that i believe there are other equally good paths and choices, and that i like that religions offer a tech gamble with a decent payout.

as far as conquest, about the religious heroes, theyre 7 strength, +2 if you get them highly promoted. if i invest in recon i can get str 7 rangers fairly easily, mass produced, and then the religious heroes are in trouble.
also, im of the opinion that bowyers should be as easy to get as animal handling, then those strength 7 heroes wouldnt be all that big a deal. again, i agree that with things as they stand, bambur is a game winner if you win those gambles and can get out there quickly. but i dont think the religions are the problems, the problem is the prohibitive costs on bowyers and other techs that give those tier units (techs go from doubling each wrung in the ladder to 4 or 8 times)

for fun, i say tech gambles add fun, so yes, i think their possibility for raising the happycap is fun. i think i see why it seems to abolish the happycap for you, since you favour cottages, but with a strong emphasis on farms and fishing boats can make even those 20 happycaps start to chafe

so on the last point i think i have to disagree, i can see what youre saying, since getting the food to break the 20 cap isnt going to happen easily without being lanun/kurioates or focusing on farms. but some people do do this, some people enjoy specialists. i wont say whether cottages is a better strategy, i dont know, and personally i think some changes in the amounts of gpp needed shouldnt increase so much as time goes on.

as far as conquest, about the religious heroes, theyre 7 strength, +2 if you get them highly promoted. if i invest in recon i can get str 7 rangers fairly easily, mass produced, and then the religious heroes are in trouble.
also, im of the opinion that bowyers should be as easy to get as animal handling, then those strength 7 heroes wouldnt be all that big a deal. again, i agree that with things as they stand, bambur is a game winner if you win those gambles and can get out there quickly. but i dont think the religions are the problems, the problem is the prohibitive costs on bowyers and other techs that give those tier units (techs go from doubling each wrung in the ladder to 4 or 8 times)

Valin Phanuel. Strength 7. Add two for heroic strength. Multiply by two for combat V. Also factor in first strikes, anti-unit promotions, etc. That's 18 strength, with first strikes, plus whatever other promotion benefits he gets. He can't take on your army single-handedly, but he's only one unit for upkeep costs, and let's not even get started on Sphener. Combine this with the economic and happiness bonuses that religion has, and tell me how other paths can be equal.

I agree with you about the tech costs being prohibitive, but that's not my main concern.

for fun, i say tech gambles add fun, so yes, i think their possibility for raising the happycap is fun. i think i see why it seems to abolish the happycap for you, since you favour cottages, but with a strong emphasis on farms and fishing boats can make even those 20 happycaps start to chafe

so on the last point i think i have to disagree, i can see what youre saying, since getting the food to break the 20 cap isnt going to happen easily without being lanun/kurioates or focusing on farms. but some people do do this, some people enjoy specialists. i wont say whether cottages is a better strategy, i dont know, and personally i think some changes in the amounts of gpp needed shouldnt increase so much as time goes on.

And I say it's not a significant gamble if you can always get the religion without freak hut pops. It's not a possibility, it's as close to a fact as you can get.

Heavy specialist strategies are in the minority. They're clearly less efficient as specialists are difficult to run high numbers of, great people get weaker as you progress into the game, and they get more rare. It's been studied, documented, and confirmed in vanilla Civ, and the factors that make it true in vanilla Civ are enhanced in FfH.

And I say it's not a significant gamble if you can always get the religion without freak hut pops. It's not a possibility, it's as close to a fact as you can get.
you're talking SP? because against humans theres no guarrantee at all. they are just as likely to get it as you.
but for SP, meh, AI's aren't human, they can't adapt as readily :p

about valin, sure hes tough, but so is gilden, and ive killed gilden with 2 archers (one defends, the other attacks after), much less with units that start with the same base strength. valin wouldnt stand up to a swarm of rangers, and rangers come sooner than valin. heroes are great, theres no denying it, but they are a gamble, you only get one, and placing all your hopes in one unit, well they have a saying for that (baskets and eggs and all that :p)

but about specialists, i think you've been playing too many financial leaders ;) i agree with you about specialists, id rather have cottages, but i also mostly play financial leaders as well and enjoy working the tangible land as opposed to those shifty specialists

Yeah, the vast majority of games are SP. Not everyone knows about our excellent online FfH'ing community... yet.

I'm not saying the heroes are the strongest points of the religious line. I'm just saying that the religious line gives you some of everything. It gives you strong heroes, useful spells, nice buildings, and a much higher happicap.

I have no issues with strong heroes, useful spells, and interesting buildings. I just want happicap to be relegated to other branches, so that there is actually some of that specialization that FfH is supposed to be based on. I want this game to be fun all the way through, same as you do. I just believe that to do that, a full happicap shouldn't be attainable until you're in the last stage of the game.

Regarding the specialist strategy, it's ironic that the OO of all religions excells at it the most. Get a city with the tower of complacency, lots of farms, and the Scholarship civic (the one you get with Arcane Lore... not sure if this is it's name), and you're set to make a decent beaker beast. This is the one situation where it's more efficient to have a GP specialized city for the whole game, as I understand it.

Falamar would excel at specialists too i imagine.

Falamar+Tower of Complacency combo... (Or any Expansive civ)

i picked falamar because he's lanun but without financial :p

imagine a one tile island in a small sea (so no ocean squares) with clams, fish, and crabs (6 food and 2 commerce each square O_O) filling up its fatcross.. then tower of complacency, a lighthouse....
prolly could get a size 60 with 40 specialists LOL

LoL...

I had a archipelago game with him that I started in a small island (2~3 cities) that had 6 clams, 1 pearl and 1 fish on my capital´s fatcross... And I didn´t cheated ! :crazyeye:

nice :p lanun with the right terrain and luck are so fun :D

they should be able to build fishing boat improvements anywhere with the chance of finding sea resources eventually like how mines work :D then all their cities would eventually be size 60 lol

Totally agreed :P

In that game i remenber I founded OO, dominated like 5 islands (1~2 cities each, plus the 2~3 from capital isle) when my rivals still had 1~2 islands... then I uberly dominated the seas and locked my rivals on their tiny islands, thn I conquered every island on the world besides theirs :crazyeye:

Fun domination victory with no cities taken/lost, that was.

I think Cardith on floodplains with OO and druids would actually do better. Not sure if he has philosophical, but he could pick it with adaptive.

the problem ive been having with Cardith has been getting health and happycap. on deity my happy cap started at 4.. so i mean, not really taking advantage of the super cities heh
but those floodplains cause sickness, instead of OO id prolly try Leaves and do tons of farms if i could capture some elven workers :D

I wonder, is it possible to have civics upgrade? So that religion simply starts with temples build faster, or such, then later in the game another tech adds +1 happy with state relgion, and God King starts w/o the happy boost, then later another tech might add it, and so forth.
Might be another way to address Chand's concern.

Chand, I just read through the thread, but I've not had a chance to load your save game yet. Having a bit of a non-routine time in the ol' household recently.

I've enjoyed your posts and think you 've made your points forcefully, and, perhaps more importantly, succinctly. (A talent clearly beyond my ken. ;))

You've hit on the right points ... Civ is most fun when there is a crisis looming on the horizon (or kicking down the front door). FfH has introcuded many new powers, which is way cool, but more power makes for easier crisis management. It's a matter of too much too soon. Before you know it, you civ is robust in every regard. Things that should cause a full-blown crisis rarely do. So it becomes a matter of how soon can I make my move to Dominate the map?

Anyway, there is nothing wrong that can't be corrected with a little tech tree shifting, civics tweaking, unit strength adjustements, building re-design ... all the normal play-balanceing issues you'd expect. I'm certain the mod itself will be hella fun once all that is done. The basic game elements are not even all complete ... of course there must be a play-balancing phase. This is just normality. :)

To get a bit more specific, I think religions have moved themselves under teh spotlight for legitimate reasons. There are far fewer Holy Cities than civs playing in a typical game. Simple logic tells you that ownership of a Holy City should not be decisively powerful, because there are not enough Holy Cities to go around. Holy Cities are not a late-game goal, they are an early-game development mechanism. Make them too powerful, and every game becomes rush-to-religion. If FfH is not already there, it is very close. I think that sums up your points and I agree with them.

Some specific comments:

Aside from my one Grigori game, I have never, not once, played a game of FfH where I did not invent a religion. Not one single game. Even when I didn't know a damn thing about the mod, just DL'ed it, loaded it, and played it, I have never once failed to invent a religion. Now once it was Veil, and the other four were already gone, but I invented it. And even though in that game I had three cites razed on me, and a fourth, VERY developed city captured for a long stretch, even though virtually every unit in my army was diseased and me with no ability to cure it, at all, even though half my elite units vanished along with their Queens of the Line due to an Armegeddon project, the game was still fun. And I still prevailed.

Since I ran my little Ljo/Khazad/Lanun/Clan study I have employed the rush-to-Cottages in every game I've played. Now, I have not played all the civs yet. But so far the Ragers have not come close to knocking me off this path. I am geting better putting them up while the slow Barbs plod towards my cities. I have never failed to invent a religion in this manner. What is more, I have never failed to be the first civ in the game to invent a religion. And, of course, I started that thread about the game where I invented all five religions. (You want to blitz an opponent out of existance? Try an army composed of Move 3 Monks and self-experienceing Priests-with-Commando and heal-on-the-move. Siege Equippment? What's that? :D Annnnywayyyyy...)

Anyway, this leads to a point. Inventing a religion can be used offensively. If you invent it, the other guy doesn't. If the other guy doesn't, he stagnates. As Grillick so ably demonstrated, there is little to no downside to going for a religion. At the very worst it is a matter of high-reward/low-risk. This is known in the trade as a Good Bet. In a similar vein, it is easy to get OO if you fail to get Leaves --- or even if you DO. You might not need OO, but if you invent it as religion #2 you have just reduced your 10 Civ game to a 2 Civ game. That is also called a Good Bet.

This is not an absolute certainty. Goodie Huts and the oppoent mix will occasionally cause you to miss a religon. At least in theory. As I said, I have never yet failed to be the very first civ to invent a religion using Education -> Mysticism -> Religion of Choice. Not once, and I am playing on a lot higher skill level than I did in vanialla civ (I am playing one notch below Diety ... whatever that's called ... FWIW.)

So a mega-:goodjob: for isoloating a root cause. You've made a persuasive case which I very much doubt has escaped notice by Kael & Ko. :clap:

One reason theres always a relgion to found is that AI won't found a civ that will change its aliginment. This fits for flavor, but if you have no evil/ good civs, there's going to be a religion saved for you.

People have mentioned the problem of not being able to get a religion if every one is founded and borders are closed to you--I think everyone who discovers a religion founding tech (and has no state religion?) should get the free disciple unit. This way they could get the religion of their choice, even if they don't have the holy city, etc.

One reason theres always a relgion to found is that AI won't found a civ that will change its aliginment. This fits for flavor, but if you have no evil/ good civs, there's going to be a religion saved for you.

People have mentioned the problem of not being able to get a religion if every one is founded and borders are closed to you--I think everyone who discovers a religion founding tech (and has no state religion?) should get the free disciple unit. This way they could get the religion of their choice, even if they don't have the holy city, etc.
ya ive been a big fan of that idea.

One reason theres always a relgion to found is that AI won't found a civ that will change its aliginment. This fits for flavor, but if you have no evil/ good civs, there's going to be a religion saved for you.

People have mentioned the problem of not being able to get a religion if every one is founded and borders are closed to you--I think everyone who discovers a religion founding tech (and has no state religion?) should get the free disciple unit. This way they could get the religion of their choice, even if they don't have the holy city, etc.

Another approach would be a 'Petition the Gods' civic which would dramatically raise the chance forreligion to spread to your lands. It's be useful for civs w/o religion, and for civs with a Holy City (to speed up the automatic spread). This comes with some risk, however, as less desireable faiths might spread in your cities too. There ae plenty of civics that are pretty much still vanilla hand-me-dwons. Plenty of candidates to add FfH flavor.

That might be a nice balance change, allowing players to get disciples by researching the appropriate religious tech. Two points, though: first, I'm worried that the AI will end up getting disciples from all religions because of their tendency to research every single religious founding tech... might be good for them to only get free disciples when they have no state religion. Second, perhaps they should only be able to get disciples from a religion they didn't found if they actually know of the religions existence; that is, they should know a player that has already adopted it as his state religion.

I'm still hoping for something to decrease the happicap bonus you get from having a religion, even if it's just for the fun factor. One step at a time, though.

id think it would be opposite of what you say chand, that if you didnt know anyone with it you could get the disciple (after all, if you know them they you're more likely to have it spread to you, where as if you don't know them you're screwed), but personally id rather it always be the case that you get a disciple so long as you don't already have a state religion (or have any religions in your cities).

A problem with that idea would be the vision granted by religion - you'd let the founder of the religion contact you from across the world, making isolated starts much less of a bother.

thatd be neat actually, its like the gods are speaking to both the civs and allowing them to communicate across the world :D

It'd be neat, sure, but it would probably get old after a while. That, and do you really want Arendel to get the Fellowship every single game regardless of whether or not you stole the holy city from her?

I'd rather let Arendel have the possibility of turning the the Fellowship, but increase the chance that she converts to another religion. Anyway, taking the shrine is a victory in itself. I think being able to deny the spread of the religion seems wrong flavor-wise (the aim of the religion itself should be to be spread as much as possible). And it seems strange that no people would be able to convert to "the Way of the Leaves" even after you've researched the tech just because you have no open borders agreement with the founder.

Really, if the problem is that some civs will predictabiliy always choose the same religion, then the solution should be to make them a little more suceptible of turning to some other religions. Anything else would just be a workaround, not a long term solution.

Just because you close borders does not keep your religion from spreading. I'm playing a game where I invented a religion but was locked off from everyone else because a civ was blocking me off and would never give me open borders. I somehow ended up finding everyone else by my religion spreading to a city halfway across the world and that civ spreading it for me. Now I am proceeding to destroy the civ that blocked me off completely unhindered by diplomacy for everyone else except the two civs I hate most adopted my religion.

Closing your borders doesn't necessarily stop the spread of religion, but it does make it much less likely. A trade route between a city that has a religion and a city that doesn't is the quickest natural way that religion spreads.

this thread sure is spiraling outward....
as to the grigori ... wow ...i have played them ALOT and imho they dont need a religion. teh grigori specialists are all heros and quickly come to the 100xp point granting them ALOT of combat bonuses and they grow in strength as you move through the eras. promoting the first to an axeman right away then work for the epic taht gives 100% GP growth and pacifism and your basically golden without religion. the power of the grigori is totally in its adventures. i have had games where i was looking at 6 or more adventures ... its powerful in its own right

Heh, just to chime in on the whole GP vs. cottages debate. I have found a solid strategy in combining them into a hybrid by starting GP while their "cheap" and cottage spamming on the side at the same time. This seems to work out pretty well with a typical start (at least one food resource). I ususally pop about 3 GP (usually rather slowly, as I want to maximize the cottages I do have planted), then forget about it. I normally play a Phi. civ and use this strategy, but lately have found fun in trying a similar strategy with a Fin. civ. I guess it all depends on land. As for the religious leaders, I remember in an MP game I was "pearl harbored" by a player, but unknown to him, I had used my GP to pop Arete, and in 7 turns, Bambur made short work of his entire empire (4 cities i believe) all on his own. Now if, as Sureshot stated, he had Rangers, this most likely would not have been the case, but the GP allowed me to get Bambur way earlier than I normally would have. So all in all, I use the GP strategy for an early advantage while simultaneously building cottages for long term financial survival. The only catch to this is there are many micromanaging details required in this strategy to totally maximize it, and if you forget to do something one turn, it can mean losing a religion by 1 turn, or getting it on the same turn as someone else, yet they get the holy city (as Sureshot can agree :p).

ya im a wicked religion stealer :D

i really think the GP amounts needed has to stop increasing ridiculously, so it doesnt become a bad strategy after the first few. usually i'll save my first few for later, like a few for holy city wonders, or an academy in my best commerce city, then'll i'll forget about any focus on them, because they come too slowly later, and its better to just be happy when you get them some time much later as a bonus, not as something you rely on.

i cant say i use farms much, only ever on plains or farm resources

for me it really depends on the land, and the civ. I rush the first 2 or 3 GP, then its all cottages (which I have already built, just not worked)

recently ive been liking farms when i use someone with agg trait. i build a few (about half my tiles) farms on high food yield tiles (like farm resources or floodplains) then use mines on the all the hills for the other half, i end up being to produce warriors every turn or every other turn on quick games, then i send them out to fight on any odds, no matter how horrible, just to use up units, and end up with a quick highly promoted army that i can go rampaging around with.. been using it to treat the ais like i get treated on deity always war (that is to say, i send stack after stack of units at them til i capture their cities). works out nice, heh

I wonder, is it possible to have civics upgrade?

I guess with Python you could create buildings in all cities if you have discovered a certain technology and are running a certain civic.