Religion - balance changes

Shalvan

Warlord
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
Messages
133
Hello!

As we all know, not all religious beliefs are on par. As it happens though, religion is one of the easiest parts of the game to mod (at least the XML files - I just modified some pantheons, but don't know how to modify the descriptions - didnt have the time to learn how, at least not yet).

The best place to start are Pantheons. I think the problem is not nerfing the most powerful ones (Desert Folklore ^^), but bringing the rest up to this level. For example, Dance of the Aurora (amazing name by the way) does pretty much the same thing, but is largely worse - why? because there're no flood plains and because there's no Petra... And your better tiles (forested) are excluded. At least hills still work...
Of course, tundra tiles are just a little bit better than flat desert, but the first two things outweigh this fact (because lets face it, a tile just a bit better than a very bad tile is still a very bad tile).

So, the list of Pantheons:
Ancestor worship +1 Culture from Shrines
Dance of the aurora +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest
Desert folklore +1 Faith from Desert tiles
Faith healers +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
Fertility rites 10% faster Growth rates
God of craftsmen +1 Production in cities with Population of 3+
God of the open sky +1 Culture from Pastures
God of the sea +1 Production from Fishing Boats
God of war Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles of your city
Goddess of festivals +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
Goddess of love +1 Happiness from cities withPopulation of 6+
Goddess of protection +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength
Goddess of the hunt +1 Food from Camps
Messenger of the gods +2 Science in cities with a City Connection
Monument to the gods +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
One with nature +4 Faith from Natural Wonders
Oral tradition +1 Culture from Plantations
Religious idols +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
Religious settlements +15% faster border growth
Sacred path +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
Sacred waters +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
Stone circles +2 Faith from Quarries
Tear of the gods +2 Faith for each Gems or Pearls resource

Of this list, I think the weaker ones are God of Craftsmen, Monument to the Gods, Messenger of the Gods, Goddess of Protection, Sacred Waters and Goddess of Love. The problem with those is that the benefit either doesn't last long or is simply negligible. God of Craftsmen is similar to the Liberty policy, which - imho- isn't that strong and add's 5% to production for buildings. Yes, it lasts, but doesn't provide any faith - if it provided faith from workshops, forges etc. it would be better, but those come a bit late for religion founding.

Monument to the Gods becomes useless after the wonders have been built, so I suppose adding something like 1 faith per turn from wonders would fix it.

Messenger of the Gods - I honestly have no idea. I tried adding faith on a city connection (whopping 3) as well as increasing the beakers to 3 and adding some culture - it was too strong as I was able to get first religion (it was king though) as well as get policies fast (though if you go wide you probably won't be able to make up for the increased beaker and culture costs for techs and policies). It's hard for me to say what to do - I was thinking about a bonus scaling with the population, the distance to the capital... But that's harder to code as the only other beliefs that scale with pop (followers) are religious community (just a % hammer bonus for a city), the one which gives happiness for followers and Tithe (followers in all cities), nothing like plus 1 science per 2 followers... Also, it's messenger. Passing information means passing science, but also culture... And travelling might be a religious act, so it actually might be a solution to tweak it so that every connected city would give some faith - and the amount of faith gained doesn't increase as sharply as science throughout the game. How to make this science gained from messenger meaningful throughout the game? Library remains useful, granting up to 15-25 science by itself in large cities and messenger will still only give 2.

Goddess of Protection - faith or culture yield from walls, castles etc. will make it, I think it's as simple as that.

Sacred Waters - faith from riverside tiles won't make it stronger than Desert Folklore already is.

Goddess of Love - 6 happiness can be quite hard to achieve early on and for a tall empire 3-5 happiness is weak. I think making it like 1 happiness per 6 followers in the city or adding some faith (1 per 5 followers perhaps?) would make it quite strong.

Do you guys find other pantheons weak? Do you have any ideas? Please share your thoughts, let's brainstorm :)
 
Messenger of the Gods is plenty strong as it is. It's fantastic on wide civs. Doesn't need any buffs.
 
Is it? How many cities are you going to found before Universities and Rationalism? I think happiness issues won't let you get more than 5, 6 max. That's 12 science per turn at the point when you are reaching 200 bpt. Later in the game it just becomes insignificant.

Meanwhile food from camps is still good and so is faith from desert tiles... And 10% growth rate increases in strength as the game goes.
 
You can take his word for it, Messenger of the Gods is easily among the top 5 best pantheon beliefs.

Pantheon beliefs I would change for balance reasons are:
- Ancestor Worship: At least add +1 Culture from Temples also.
- Desert Folklore: Loses faith from Flood Plains.
- God of Craftsmen: Bump to +3 production.
- Monuments to the Gods: Possibly some other bonus like +1 Faith per wonder.
- One with Nature: Add +2 Food on each Natural Wonder.
- Religious Settlements: Add +1 Culture per city (or maybe even +2).

The following beliefs could be changed for flavor reasons:
- God of Open Sky: Add +1 Faith from Pastures.
- Oral Tradition: Add +1 Faith from Plantations.
- Sacred Path: Change to +1 Faith from Jungle tiles (currently +1 Culture)
- Stone Circles: Reduce to +1 Faith and add +1 Culture on Quarries
- Tear of the Gods: Reduce to +1 Faith and add +1 Culture on Gems and Pearls.
 
Pantheon beliefs I would change for balance reasons are:
- Ancestor Worship: At least add +1 Culture from Temples also.
- Desert Folklore: Loses faith from Flood Plains.
- God of Craftsmen: Bump to +3 production.
- Monuments to the Gods: Possibly some other bonus like +1 Faith per wonder.
- One with Nature: Add +2 Food on each Natural Wonder.
- Religious Settlements: Add +1 Culture per city (or maybe even +2).

-Ancestor Worship: Yes.
-Desert Folklore: Yes.
-God of Craftsmen: I think +3 production could be too powerful if you get a quick pantheon (the other productive pantheon, God of the Sea, requires fishing boats so it takes time.) I'd have +2, and have the second point of production require a larger city size, like 5 or something.
-Monuments of the Gods: Something along those lines.
-One with Nature: We have to consider Spain here, their bonus is doubled. In fact, there's the problem. It's highly situational for most Civs but very powerful for Spain as it is at the moment.
-Religious Settlements: I think a possible culture bonus should have a prerequisite to prevent it being too powerful, maybe it could be "+1 culture from every Monument/Stele and 15% faster border growth".
 
-One with Nature: We have to consider Spain here, their bonus is doubled. In fact, there's the problem. It's highly situational for most Civs but very powerful for Spain as it is at the moment.
Actually, I would say we shouldn't have to consider Spain. Problem is Spain's UA is just poorly balanced, it either is completely useless (if you don't get any NW close to you) or an instant-win (if you start close to just about any natural wonder other than perhaps Grand Mesa or Old Faithful). So I wouldn't take Spain into consideration when thinking general balance.
 
Actually, I would say we shouldn't have to consider Spain. Problem is Spain's UA is just poorly balanced, it either is completely useless (if you don't get any NW close to you) or an instant-win (if you start close to just about any natural wonder other than perhaps Grand Mesa or Old Faithful). So I wouldn't take Spain into consideration when thinking general balance.

I exclusively play Marathon mode, where production and technology doesn't advance as quickly relative to exploration.

In that mode, the UA has more gameplay because you can more realistically scout out a Natural Wonder for your second city.

Anyway, Natural Wonders generally seem weak to me: I'd like to see the weaker ones strengthened and something to keep them from falling off as hard as they do.\


One with Nature gives Spain a somewhat less than obvious :c5faith: focus which is fun to use.

(How can anyone stand non-Marathon gamemodes? Everything advances waaay too fast.)


Anyway, I like the idea of Sacred Waters giving either :c5faith: or :c5culture: on river tiles, for players who want to found most of their cities on a river.

I'd like to see Dance of the Aurora give some yield on Snow tiles, like +2 :c5culture: and +2 :c5faith:, so they are give no direct bonus to the city other than border growth, but have an use.
 
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