[Vote] (6-61) India UA Rework

[ma_kuh]

Proposal:
Font of Dharma Mahatma (UA):

• Current: Starts with a pantheon. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith. Founding a Religion converts all owned Cities. +10% base Religious Pressure and +1% Food for each Follower of your primary Religion in a City. Cannot build Missionaries.
• New: Starts with a pantheon. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith. You may spend a Prophet's first spread action to Found or Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site, without consuming the Prophet. Cannot build Missionaries.
  • Major actions still require a 4/4 Prophet, so after spending the 1 charge they can only be used for Spread Faith actions.
  • This means you can use the 3 charges for your starting cities (you typically will have 4 or fewer total cities at this stage of the game).
  • You get more flexibility with your initial pressure, and you get a new wave of pressure after Enhancing.
  • The bonus food is moved off of the UA and onto the UB. This has a side-benefit mentioned later, but also delays scaling slightly (though the % is fairly low and acting on a low total food, so not much power change is expected).

Harappan Reservoir (UB):

• Current:
  • 20% of Food is carried over after a new Citizen is born.
  • +25% of the Production of the city is added to the City's current Production.
  • +1 Production from Flood Plains.
  • +2 Food on Lakes and Oases worked by this City.
  • Farms worked by this City gain +1 Food and Production.
  • -1 Unhappiness from Poverty.
• New:
  • 20% of Food is carried over after a new Citizen is born.
  • +25% of the Production of the city is added to the City's current Production.
  • +1% Food for every Follower of the primary Religion in this City.
    • This applies to whatever religion is highest, not necessarily your own.
    • Minor benefit so this ability works when captured, or if your cities are converted.
  • +2 Food on Lakes and Oases worked by this City.
  • Farms worked by this City gain +1 Food and Production.
  • -1 Unhappiness from Poverty.

AI changes:

• India should always use a Prophet to Build a Holy Site before trying to Spread Faith. (Presumably the first 1 and 2 Prophets are always used for Religions, but if not, they should be.)
• India should use partial Prophets to convert its own cities first. If all cities are converted, follow normal Prophet Spread rules.

Reasoning:
India's UA has a lot of abilities trying to do the same thing: it wants you to play with only Prophets, then tries to smooth over not having Missionaries by giving you a free conversion to start, then pressure to convert new cities as the game goes on. It's verbose, and leans into a mechanic (passive religious pressure) that is unfun to play against, and too brittle if it gets shut down in the early game.

To solve this, we give India's Great Prophets the unique ability to spread faith in addition to performing their major actions. The Food bonus is moved off of the UA and onto the UB, where it makes sense and where it can be made slightly more flexible, using the city's major religion rather than your primary religion. This means that getting knocked out of the Religion game doesn't mean that your Food scaling is also turned off.

Complex Proposal: DLL + Database Changes (& possibly UI Changes)

 

[pineappledan]

Should get rid of the floodplains bonus on reservoir, imo. India doesn’t have a desert bias.

 

[ma_kuh]

Maybe we consolidate it into the Farm bonus? I feel like they don't need a nerf on the building, since the % is being delayed until the building and not available from the beginning. They're in the middle of the pack in terms of win rate.

So:

• +1 Production from Flood Plains.
• Farms worked by this City gain +1 Food and +2 Production.

??

Hmm, maybe that's too much raw production actually. I guess I can see why it was for flood plains only, if you have it on regular plains it gets a lot stronger.
I'll just remove it for now, it's not a lot of production, and the times you spawn on flood plains you're pretty fine with flood plain farms to begin with.

 

[pineappledan]

Also, the current India UA has a secret, unstated benefit: Indian cities are immune to religious unrest

With taking out the auto-conversion and the stacking pressure/food from the UA there would be enough room in the UA description to “unhide” that bonus. On the other hand, I think it would be good to simply remove it. India’s UA already does 5 other things while most other UAs do 2 or 3.

 

[ma_kuh]

Yes, I agree it should be removed. With more prophet spreads they have enough tools to take care of that in their own cities. I'll add it to the change list.

 

[Stalker0]

I would update the text slightly:

Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and when they are at maxiumum spread actions, can spend only 1 Spread Action when Founding or Enhancing a Religion, or building a Holy Site.

This reinforces the idea that you can only do this as the first use of the GP, and then from there its spread as normal, ensuring the person doesn't think they can found, they get a holy site, than spread, etc.

 

[Anarcomu]

and spend only 1 Spread Action when Founding or Enhancing a Religion, or building a Holy Site

Rephrasing : and only spend 1st spread action when Founding or Enhancing a Religion, or building a Holy Site.

 

[azum4roll]

Also, the current India UA has a secret, unstated benefit: Indian cities are immune to religious unrest

No they don't.

---

This doesn't help their early religion spread in the slightest. Currently they get all their cities converted upon founding as if they've all been spread to once. If they have more than 4 cities when founding with the current proposal, one of their cities will be stuck without a religion before they get their 2nd prophet.

 

[Stalker0]

This doesn't help their early religion spread in the slightest. Currently they get all their cities converted upon founding as if they've all been spread to once. If they have more than 4 cities when founding with the current proposal, one of their cities will be stuck without a religion before they get their 2nd prophet.

To be fair, India is often getting its 2nd GP by the time many civs are starting their first missionary spreads, so by the time a regular civ has spread to its core 6-7 cities, India has long done that and its enhanced with this model.

 

[ma_kuh]

I would update the text slightly:

Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and when they are at maxiumum spread actions, can spend only 1 Spread Action when Founding or Enhancing a Religion, or building a Holy Site.

This reinforces the idea that you can only do this as the first use of the GP, and then from there its spread as normal, ensuring the person doesn't think they can found, they get a holy site, than spread, etc.

1. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and may spend 1 spread action to Found or Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site while at maximum spread actions.

Maybe this? Otherwise I'd be inclined to just mention "once per Prophet" or something explicit.

2. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and only spend 1 spread action to Found or Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site (limit 1 major action per Prophet).

 

[Stalker0]

1. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and may spend 1 spread action to Found or Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site while at maximum spread actions.

Maybe this? Otherwise I'd be inclined to just mention "once per Prophet" or something explicit.

2. Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and only spend 1 spread action to Found or Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site (limit 1 major action per Prophet).

or maybe: "You may use the Great Prophet's first spread action to Found/Enhance a Religion or Build a Holy site without consuming the prophet"

 

[pineappledan]

Another benefit of this change would be it’s less prone to abuse in multiplayer. It is easy for multiple enemy human players to coordinate spread actions into an India player early to shut him down. It’s will be harder to do that if his additional spread power is on GProphets, an active component, that if it is on a passive pressure bonus.

The change would put less of a target on India’s back in multiplayer.

 

[Recursive]

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