Why these nerfs in BNW?

First thing I noticed about BNW is this enhancer nerf... why?
(As Byzantium I really enjoyed itinerant preachers + religious text = +270 religious pressure on enemy holy city in the middle of the map without any need for missionaries; = 200 gold/turn from tithe late game... the one thing that saved my ass so many times when victory seemed impossible; now it's rare if pressure in one city gets to over 200 )

You'd think they'd nerf itinerant preachers as well, since 30% increase in radius is a 69% increase in area (I think that's how they came up with 68% in vanilla)

Then as Carthage, I suddenly realized that the free harbor no longer gives me a hammer for each sea resource at the start of the game... (used to be if she spawns with 4 crabs and 3 fish at the beginning, it's gg) now sea resource spawns suck... and they nerfed the gold from crabs and whales and fish!

What gives!!!??? As if it isn't bad enough that work boats cost a lot and are consumed upon use, AND requires a tech, while salt spawns are still OP as ever.

kb27787 said:

Then as Carthage, I suddenly realized that the free harbor no longer gives me a hammer for each sea resource at the start of the game... (used to be if she spawns with 4 crabs and 3 fish at the beginning, it's gg) now sea resource spawns suck... and they nerfed the gold from crabs and whales and fish!

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You get the hammer with a lighthouse now. Sucks for Carthage but benefits everyone else.

They should definitely nerf Salt so that it can only be made on non-plain/grassland tiles or something.

Tachii said:

They should definitely nerf Salt so that it can only be made on non-plain/grassland tiles or something.

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That's a good idea actually. Salt should only appear in desert and tundra with the current tile yields gained from it.
Or let it appear anywhere like now but with reduced yields?

They obviously tried to make other enhancer beliefs more competitive. And they did.
Piety -> Mosque of Djenne -> Enhancer for missionary (both work well) -> Evangelism (reformation) -> erode other religions with missionary spam -> profit!

Carthage has amazing early sea trade routes instead, now. Gold per sea resource is moved to Compass as well as an additional trade route. Makes compass a more useful tech.

I like picking God of the Sea pantheon to go with my lighthouses.

First thing I noticed about BNW is this enhancer nerf... why?

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It appears the main reason for the RT nerf is that it counts for leaking of religion via trade routes.

They kept IP the same because it's inherently somewhat less powerful.
(If you have a trade route with a city 11 tiles away; then the IP bonus isn't helping you in that instance, because if you don't have IP it spreads via trade route while if you do have IP the very fact it got naturally included excludes religion spread from trade route.)

I think these are still the two most powerful enhancing beliefs. In part because most people when drawing up a trade route are either interested in most gold for them (or most science) or else a net economic advantage over their partner (high gold for them & low gold for the AI its with). Few people try to use trade routes to pump a massive amount of religion into a city.

Yeah, religion spreads slower in general since it is also spread by trade routes now. Perhaps Arabia is the premier religion-spreader now?