Religious wars/intolerance

Vokarya said:

I don't want to lower the movement of any Missionary. I like all of them at move 2.

Making later religions better runs into the problem of Choose Religions. Any religion that's completely better than others will get taken immediately and it won't be a real choice.

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I don't think either that decreasing the speed of some missionaries would be a solution.

BUT maybe missionaries could be tweaked indeed. How about monasteries having a small % chance to generate a free missionary (similarly to the crusaders).
This % could be modified not only by game speed and map size but also it's "founding time". The later a religion is founded, the higher would be the chance to get a free missionary.

Vokarya said:

I haven't played a serious game in a while, but I usually wind up getting Hellenism by beelining Warfare while the AI is headed for Writing, and then getting to Christianity while the AI goes for Feudalism/Guilds. Once I've built the Parthenon, then I switch to Christianity to get King Richard's Crusade and start racking up Crusaders. I find Crusaders actually aren't offensive juggernauts because they don't start with any XP, but they are still really useful. Promoted Swordsmen are better city attackers. I have usually wound up getting Islam and that definitely tends to languish.

I don't want to lower the movement of any Missionary. I like all of them at move 2.

Making later religions better runs into the problem of Choose Religions. Any religion that's completely better than others will get taken immediately and it won't be a real choice.

Click to expand...

That's my typical play style as well, though I don't always go after Christianity.

I forgot about choose religions since I don't use it. Could it be tweaked so that the improved benefits show up at the religions' usual founding tech? As a completely random example, Christian churches get +2happiness at Theology, Islamic monasteries get +2 science at Education, etc? That way those later religions only get better when they are supposed to without imbalancing the early game too much. I think the biggest key to making later religions more prominent would be to offer them some benefit to offset the drawbacks that come from having to invest in spreading a religion and having to deal with diplomatic penalties from switching.

Other ideas, maybe more free missionaries for later religions?

I forgot about Gutenberg, but as far as I know it's a one time thing, but what I was thinking was something for the later religions that spreads it every time you captured a city, or removed others every time you captured a city. Preferably it /they would be unique to late religions.

Vokarya said:

I haven't played a serious game in a while, but I usually wind up getting Hellenism by beelining Warfare while the AI is headed for Writing, and then getting to Christianity while the AI goes for Feudalism/Guilds. Once I've built the Parthenon, then I switch to Christianity to get King Richard's Crusade and start racking up Crusaders. I find Crusaders actually aren't offensive juggernauts because they don't start with any XP, but they are still really useful. Promoted Swordsmen are better city attackers. I have usually wound up getting Islam and that definitely tends to languish.

I don't want to lower the movement of any Missionary. I like all of them at move 2.

Making later religions better runs into the problem of Choose Religions. Any religion that's completely better than others will get taken immediately and it won't be a real choice.

Click to expand...

I am curious how anyone playing on a hard difficulty even obtains religions. I played on Prince difficulty last weekend and despite perfect beelining the AI would beat me to religions 5+ turns in advance. Is everyone just on easy difficulties?

Afforess said:

I am curious how anyone playing on a hard difficulty even obtains religions. I played on Prince difficulty last weekend and despite perfect beelining the AI would beat me to religions 5+ turns in advance. Is everyone just on easy difficulties?

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I was wondering the same, but given I know some players find "easy" even playing on Immortal, I suppose they don't have any interest in religions.

Afforess said:

I am curious how anyone playing on a hard difficulty even obtains religions. I played on Prince difficulty last weekend and despite perfect beelining the AI would beat me to religions 5+ turns in advance. Is everyone just on easy difficulties?

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I play Monarch/Emperor depending on how much of a challenge I feel like. I beeline for Hellenism. It used to be a surefire strategy, but in some Rev# the AI got better about going for it so now I do get beat occasionally, it depends a lot on starting location. An immediate switch to Christianity in that case can usually work as a backup. Getting Slavery early to get out of the horrible penalties in Barter is a must as well, you more than make up for the lost turns.

I play on Noble. As I've said before, in order to get religions, I beeline Warfare to get the early GG, then take advantage of the AI's beelining Writing in combination with Tech Diffusion to grab some Ancient techs quickly before switching to research Athletics and get Hellenism before the AI's can run down the tree to get to Warfare/Athletics. I never run Slavery because I feel (I don't have any evidence to back it up) that running Slavery is how AI's get into early revolts. I also launch my first big wars when I get to Smithing and Siege Warfare and can get Swordsmen and Catapults. That's when I usually wind up jumping to the top of the scoreboard. The last few games I played, the AI would get Drama but avoid Music, so I could get Music and Theology and found Christianity while all the AI's were getting Feudalism and Guilds.

I'd like to lower barter penalty to 20-25 %. 33% is too much and I fear it's a reason why some AI fall behind so early. I usually play on noble and beeline slavery and monotheism to get Judaism. If I fail, I go for Buddhism.

I play with Limited religions, and exceptions for 1 city civ's, *Like they have any chance*

So once you've founded a religion, you can't found anymore, only capture them.

I find this spreads the religions out, religious diversity is achieved, and you can found a religion. I tend to find that Naugalism and Hellenism tend to be left, and ones after that are easily picked up, if you don't already have a holy city.

Its not a matter of Difficulty, its just using limited religions option, that only restricts the multiple founding of religions, and will give great religious diversity.

Vokarya said:

Making later religions better runs into the problem of Choose Religions. Any religion that's completely better than others will get taken immediately and it won't be a real choice.

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If it lets us make the religions more diverse and interesting, we could always choose to disable the Choose Religions gameoption. It's a possibility.

I'm fine with that change, to be fair. I'm seemingly using fewer and fewer options as I get older.

Afforess said:

I am curious how anyone playing on a hard difficulty even obtains religions. I played on Prince difficulty last weekend and despite perfect beelining the AI would beat me to religions 5+ turns in advance. Is everyone just on easy difficulties?

Click to expand...

Even on just Monarch it's tough to beat the AI to one. That's why I had suggested that the religion tech paths needed broke up even more. That you can't have 1 religion tech leading to another religion tech. And sometimes you need to have 3 or 4 techs in between.

Just like mathematics beeline the AI knows it and uses it, or used to. So too the AI "knows" or has "perks", like thru leader traits or somehow how, to get to the religions 1st.

It was also why I was glad Vokarya added 2 more Religions into the Mod.

Do players actually use Choose Religions anymore? After Multiple Religion Spread was introduced I stopped using Any of the other Religion "options".

I'll leave now, said enough.

JosEPh

I only used Choose Religions back in BTS.

I usually play on Prince now, used to be mostly just Noble. Often I'll miss out on some of the earlier ones, but I can sometimes grab the Calandar or Education religion, sometimes Athletics. I almost never get Kemetism, though I've had some good luck grabbing Buddhism before the AI.