Let's discuss balance and possible fixes

[Sorinth]

I agree that a 1 policy faster great prophet would be a good solution.

For faith, I'm not willing to remove faith pantheon that seems way too harsh. I don't want to make religion a monopoly of Piety, I want Piety to give the most out of Religion. It already has some strong bonus for spreading (better faith, the mosque and a discount). The little bonus to the capital in the opener would be there only to ensure an early pantheon which seems like a good idea. Limiting something like Desert Folklore is however a possibility.

An option I have been toying with would be to offer Piety a unique building available through faith purchase that would increase Happiness and or culture. I think the tree need some form of happiness and giving it through faith seems a good idea.

It's actually 2 policies faster since you don't need Theocracy.

But it's not about Piety having a monopoly (Though they should get first crack) it's about ensuring that you need to make an investment to get a religion. With the right terrain you can reliably get a religion by building a single shrine, and I've had games where I didn't even need that. Hit two Religious CS next to each other with my warrior and picked DF. So literally 0 investment and I get the "best" religion. So the problem is that I get all these bonuses from religion at near 0 cost. If instead I had to build shrines/temples to get a religion that single shrine will get me a pantheon and that's about it. Which is how it should be, a small investment gives a small bonus, a bigger investment gets a bigger reward.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It's actually 2 policies faster since you don't need Theocracy.

But it's not about Piety having a monopoly (Though they should get first crack) it's about ensuring that you need to make an investment to get a religion. With the right terrain you can reliably get a religion by building a single shrine, and I've had games where I didn't even need that. Hit two Religious CS next to each other with my warrior and picked DF. So literally 0 investment and I get the "best" religion. So the problem is that I get all these bonuses from religion at near 0 cost. If instead I had to build shrines/temples to get a religion that single shrine will get me a pantheon and that's about it. Which is how it should be, a small investment gives a small bonus, a bigger investment gets a bigger reward.

I thinks its fine that the right terrain can give a good religion.
Piety should somewhat ensure that you will get at least a mediocre religion, and be able to push it well.

The Reformation beliefs are part of ensuring that it is at least mediocre, and the faith helps you to push it.

I'm not sure 25% faith converted is a good idea. It doesn't fix early culture problem and has the potential to be too good later on. Doesn't seem to fix where things are needed. 2FPT AND Free shrines seems a bit too much for an opener. The current one already reduces build time of 2 buildings in half and if I add 1Fpt on top of it you are guaranteed an early pantheon.


Yes I know but I need to find a way to make early Piety give some amount of culture. 1CPT per shrine doesn't seem too strong. Yes it will synergize well with wide empire but that isn't such a problem in my mind, you will have to invest 2 policies more to get 1FPT and 1CPT per city (assuming you built a shrine everywhere) that is approximately the same value as investing 2 policies in liberty (1hammer, 1culture per city) or tradition (3culture, faster border, 4 free culture buildings (or 15% wonder production and some happiness).

Not sure it needs much early culture.
If you get Early faith you can get semi-early culture (with the first follower benefit or choosing a culture pantheon)..and happiness

It's possible that it makes Organized Religion a bit too good though I agree.

An option I have been toying with would be to offer Piety a unique building available through faith purchase that would increase Happiness and or culture. I think the tree need some form of happiness and giving it through faith seems a good idea.

The thing is you can get Happiness through faith as well. (fairly easily... there are 3 +2 Follower beliefs and 3 +1 follower beliefs... and 2 +1 follower beliefs)

I think Piety works as an 'invest in getting a religion for your rewards'.. it just needs a bit more early faith to get it.

Then Reformation to make your religion better in the late game.
Free Religion (..my revised version so you get all the pantheon benefits) to get something unique to you
Theocracy (+pressure for your own religion inside your borders) so that you don't have to spend faith defending your religion inside your borders [late game benefit, but also when colonizing with a religion instead of a Pantheon]

 

[Sorinth]

I thinks its fine that the right terrain can give a good religion.
Piety should somewhat ensure that you will get at least a mediocre religion, and be able to push it well.

The Reformation beliefs are part of ensuring that it is at least mediocre, and the faith helps you to push it.

Why is that?

You can reap a lot of benefits for very little investment based on something random. Piety should ensure you get first crack at the beliefs so that you have the "best" religion because there's such a high investment cost (SP and Hammers).

 

[Acken]

It's actually 2 policies faster since you don't need Theocracy.

But it's not about Piety having a monopoly (Though they should get first crack) it's about ensuring that you need to make an investment to get a religion. With the right terrain you can reliably get a religion by building a single shrine, and I've had games where I didn't even need that. Hit two Religious CS next to each other with my warrior and picked DF. So literally 0 investment and I get the "best" religion. So the problem is that I get all these bonuses from religion at near 0 cost. If instead I had to build shrines/temples to get a religion that single shrine will get me a pantheon and that's about it. Which is how it should be, a small investment gives a small bonus, a bigger investment gets a bigger reward.

If you don't need theocracy, that is 1 policy sooner not 2 ^^ (you invest 5 instead of 6, the finisher is free once you invest 6 into a tree).

For your example that would be a problem more with desert folklore than anything I'd say. To me it's an unbalanced belief to begin with so...

1Faith in capital, 1more per shrine, 1more per temple, 20% discount, that is already quite a lot of additional faith point. I'd be very surprised, desert folklore aside, if you don't get first religion with a piety build. But either way this is the kind of stuff that has to be tested too.

And finally the purpose isn't necessarily to make Piety king of religion regardless of terrain. You have to take into account that playing Piety on a terrain giving no good Pantheon, may not be a good idea.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Why is that?

You can reap a lot of benefits for very little investment based on something random. Piety should ensure you get first crack at the beliefs so that you have the "best" religion because there's such a high investment cost (SP and Hammers).

Because the right terrain gives you a lot of things... what thing that is depends on the Terrain.

(Desert folklore Is a bit of a problem, because of the Flood plains... a mix of desert hills and flood plains is good for almost everything...religion, production+growth, gold)

 

[Acken]

Not sure it needs much early culture.
If you get Early faith you can get semi-early culture (with the first follower benefit or choosing a culture pantheon)..and happiness

The thing is you can get Happiness through faith as well. (fairly easily... there are 3 +2 Follower beliefs and 3 +1 follower beliefs... and 2 +1 follower beliefs)

I do not really agree with this. I understand what you are saying, and I've seen this argument already. That a religion helps culture and happiness through beliefs buildings. And while that is true, there is an opportunity cost.

If you look at someone taking tradition he already has happiness in his tree (and other goodies). When he makes a religion he doesn't have to care about happiness and can take beliefs that interest him more.
If a Piety player has to sacrifice a belief just to be on par with another tree, I'm not sure it's being balanced. Maybe if Piety had one additional belief...
Admitedly you will have a stronger religion as Piety, especially if you take faith producing building as a belief on top of it. But I really believe it needs an "in-tree" bonus in culture and/or happiness. Another issue is that these building come WAY late. The time it takes to generate a prophet then enough faith to both spread and build buildings is almost at the point when tradition and liberty finish their trees... Meanwhile with Piety you're (currently) left in the dust, 2 policies behind and barely any happiness.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I do not really agree with this. I understand what you are saying, and I've seen this argument already. That a religion helps culture and happiness through beliefs buildings. And while that is true, there is an opportunity cost.

If you look at someone taking tradition he already has happiness in his tree (and other goodies). When he makes a religion he doesn't have to care about happiness and can take beliefs that interest him more.
If a Piety player has to sacrifice a belief just to be on par with another tree, I'm not sure it's being balanced. Admitedly you will have a stronger religion as Piety, especially if you take faith producing building as a belief on top of it. But I really believe it needs an "in-tree" bonus in culture and/or happiness. Another issue is that these building come WAY late. The time it takes to generate a prophet then enough faith to both spread and build buildings is almost at the point when tradition and liberty finish their trees... Meanwhile with Piety you're (currently) left in the dust, 2 policies behind and barely any happiness.

Well a couple policies behind means the next few policies will be cheaper.

That is why I think a "free shrines" +2 fpt opener would be good, it doubles down on the early faith... although primarily giving some more gold through reduced maintenance costs.
(and allows you to take a happy or culture pantheon if you are willing to wait for a prophet... or go with a faith pantheon and really rush the prophet to get the first/best religion)

If you add in a Religious Tolerance that effectively gives you the pantheon benefits of all religions in your empire, then you are posed for some significant benefits later in the game [unless you are playing a duel/tiny map]

(Essentially Religious Tolerance would be the "unique benefit" besides more faith it would just be a little late loaded)

 

[MilesBeyond]

This may be a bit outside of the scope of the thread, but I honestly think that what would balance out SPs the most is a more fluid system.

In other words, Social Policies should be transferable. IMHO, the real thing that makes the weaker trees unappealing is that once I've taken some policies there, I'm locked in for the rest of the game. I mean, one of the strengths of Tradition is that, relative to its competitors, it stays useful, longer. If it were possible for me to take, say, three policies in Honor for an early war, and then suffer some sort of penalty to transfer those policies over to Tradition to get three different policies there, I'd be a lot more inclined to take it.

Obviously we'd need a few basic ground rules. No transferring between policies of different eras would be a big one. No transferring of openers makes sense, too - for a variety of reasons. The one main problem with this system is that one-off bonuses (e.g. Liberty's free Golden Age) would be open to all sorts of exploitations, so they may need to be revisited.

Anyway, this is just a rough draft. I haven't really sketched this out yet. I do think, though, that by making policy changes easier, weaker trees will become much more attractive.

 

[Acken]

I see that you'd wish for something closer to C4 civics but yes it's a bit outside of the scope of this thread. Like I said, no deep mechanics changes planned. People are still free to discuss them though of course

 

[layelaye]

Most of what has been discussed here i can do myself fairly easily. i'd like to get started on making a pietyMod, so i'll list what i think is agreed upon so far:

Opener gives +1 or 2 faith in the cap.

Shrines and maybe temples provide +1 culture.

happiness somewhere in the tree: maybe from grand temple or temples. im not sure if its possible but what would you say about happiness from holy sites (similar to how old faithful works).

It would make a lot of sense imo.

 

[Acken]

I've thought also through holy sites of course. I think it's a more faith like approach than a flat bonus to temple. The problem is it comes late... so I'm fairly undecided.

By the way if you wanted to do it I'm pretty sure it would require lua coding so it's fairly more complicated (since you cannot add happiness to improvements through XML as far as I can see). I can see some indirect way to do it adding a dummy building giving happiness for every Holy sites in city border (one per). That would require more work since I'm only beginning to dig into Civ5 lua coding.
Something like:
check if player has policy
for every city of that player
count number of holy site for that player inside city plots
adjust number of building dummy

Then make that building uncapturable too. May spend some time trying it just to get more familiar with lua modding.

 

[Sorinth]

If you don't need theocracy, that is 1 policy sooner not 2 ^^ (you invest 5 instead of 6, the finisher is free once you invest 6 into a tree).

For your example that would be a problem more with desert folklore than anything I'd say. To me it's an unbalanced belief to begin with so...

1Faith in capital, 1more per shrine, 1more per temple, 20% discount, that is already quite a lot of additional faith point. I'd be very surprised, desert folklore aside, if you don't get first religion with a piety build. But either way this is the kind of stuff that has to be tested too.

And finally the purpose isn't necessarily to make Piety king of religion regardless of terrain. You have to take into account that playing Piety on a terrain giving no good Pantheon, may not be a good idea.

You're right about the policy count my mistake

The 20% discount doesn't apply to Prophets, so the Piety player is basically getting faster shrines and the +1 faith. So to get that first Prophet his bonuses are not very significant. It's not just Desert Folklore, it's pretty easy to get 3-6 faith with any of the faith pantheons. Clearing a Barb encampment for a religious Civ will help you get your religion faster than going Piety.

That's where the problem lies, with very little investment you can get a good Religion. So the Piety player is investing a lot (Culture & Hammers) and he gets only a slightly better religion, and even that is questionable since founding first will come down to a lot of more random factors than choices you make. Not too mention if your unlucky you end up waiting for the random spawn.

It's less about making Piety king and more about forcing everyone to build a bunch of Shrines/Temples to get a good religion. Because right now if you don't have faith terrain, then you don't go Piety. If you do have faith terrain, you still don't go Piety because you can get a good religion by building one maybe two shrines total. There are so many other factors that are out of your control that dictate who founds early.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You're right about the policy count my mistake

The 20% discount doesn't apply to Prophets, so the Piety player is basically getting faster shrines and the +1 faith. So to get that first Prophet his bonuses are not very significant. It's not just Desert Folklore, it's pretty easy to get 3-6 faith with any of the faith pantheons. Clearing a Barb encampment for a religious Civ will help you get your religion faster than going Piety.

That's where the problem lies, with very little investment you can get a good Religion. So the Piety player is investing a lot (Culture & Hammers) and he gets only a slightly better religion, and even that is questionable since founding first will come down to a lot of more random factors than choices you make. Not too mention if your unlucky you end up waiting for the random spawn.

It's less about making Piety king and more about forcing everyone to build a bunch of Shrines/Temples to get a good religion. Because right now if you don't have faith terrain, then you don't go Piety. If you do have faith terrain, you still don't go Piety because you can get a good religion by building one maybe two shrines total. There are so many other factors that are out of your control that dictate who founds early.

That's why I think
1. Free Shrines in Opener (so you invest Culture but NOT production/gold) +2 Fpt capital... so it really pushes you towards that first prophet (4 fpt with the first 2 policies and no new cities/faith pantheons)

2. Looking at faith benefits besides just getting the religion.. (reason for the reformation beliefs)

Of course one of the nice things about that is that it means
Other civs taking piety mean THEY will get a religion earlier... weakening those who Don't take Piety and just go for Faith Pantheon/Stonhenge (which will be the only but risky options for those who don't take Piety)

 

[Acken]

You're right about the policy count my mistake

The 20% discount doesn't apply to Prophets, so the Piety player is basically getting faster shrines and the +1 faith. So to get that first Prophet his bonuses are not very significant. It's not just Desert Folklore, it's pretty easy to get 3-6 faith with any of the faith pantheons. Clearing a Barb encampment for a religious Civ will help you get your religion faster than going Piety.

That's where the problem lies, with very little investment you can get a good Religion. So the Piety player is investing a lot (Culture & Hammers) and he gets only a slightly better religion, and even that is questionable since founding first will come down to a lot of more random factors than choices you make. Not too mention if your unlucky you end up waiting for the random spawn.

It's less about making Piety king and more about forcing everyone to build a bunch of Shrines/Temples to get a good religion. Because right now if you don't have faith terrain, then you don't go Piety. If you do have faith terrain, you still don't go Piety because you can get a good religion by building one maybe two shrines total. There are so many other factors that are out of your control that dictate who founds early.

That's basically why I'd preffer Piety to have additional bonus through religion/religion_buildings. If Piety is only a faith generator tree (like it is right now) we have the situation you're describing where it's not worth it if you already have another mean to get a good FPT.
But if instead Piety only marginally helps with Religion in the beginning AND get UNIQUE bonuses out of it then I can see (if well design) someone having a good faith terrain to truly consider taking the tree.
That's also why I don't consider the argument that Piety can get happiness through religion a good argument, like you said there is an opportunity cost.

You could see Reformation Belief and Theocracy being already something in that direction.

I also want to remind you that I already plan to boost early piety FPT by 1 or 2 since I agree the early faith of piety is a bit lacking. With this you'd be between 3 or 4 FPT in the early game, that is quite a lot for only one city with no pantheon. That's as much as the best pantheon can deliver at this point and once you make a second city with a shrine it quickly gets higher and you would also get your own pantheon for more faith, or something else. If it's still really underpowered quick plays shall prove it.

 

[subtledoctor]

What about this: each SP you take in the Piety tree gives you 1fpt in addition to other effects. So you could go Tradition and try to build Stonehenge for a religion; or you could commit to Piety (and devote those hammers to other things.

Some culture is needed in that tree too... the "Game Balance" mod adds 1cpt to shrines and temples in the top left policy, which is not bad. But the 'percentage of faith is added to culture' idea is actually nice. 1) It's different; and 2) it gives cultural reward for cultivating a pious culture. Makes sense to me.

An alternative idea: Religious Tolerance is pretty useless as it stands now. How about 1cpt in each city for each religion represented among its citizens? That would reward actual, y'know, religious tolerance (i.e. open borders, trade routes to cities with other religions, and willingness to listen to foreign missionaries when they come preaching).

[edit] Btw this discussion is great, it's always fun to pick over specific proposals... but in a game this wide-ranging small implementation details don't usually make or break the overall playing experience. In the interest of playing a balanced game (rather than creating a balanced game), lately I've been combining the "Game Balance" mod (which buffs Piety and ever-so-slightly nerfs Tradition) and the "Liberty BNW + Venice" mod (which slightly buffs Liberty). They go great together and really balance out the early SP trees.

 

[Acken]

To be honest I just hate the whole idea behind Religious Tolerance:
-It takes a lot of time to be of any use
-The bonus are unpredictable
-It's counter to the idea of having the strongest religion around.
-Changing it requires some heavy coding

I don't know, would fit better into Freedom if you ask me I'm pondering whether a more reliable version of it, like your idea subtledoctor is better or just keep it and add something better on top of it.

Not really on topic but layelaye in your mod the added code for a truly free great people (which comes from Liberty + Venice mod I believe) has an error in it (also in orginial). It tests for Republic rather than Representation as the completing policy. And I was able to code the "Shrine give happiness" policy if you ever request it I'll provide it to you (unsure to use it myself).

 

[layelaye]

hmm how does that error manifest? ingame that seems to work fine. i usually get meritocracy as my last policy.

 

[Acken]

It's not an error it's just a bad check. In other word, if you finish Liberty by Representation, the code won't recognize it and therefore you won't have a truly free Great people, just edit the lua and replace POLICY_REPUBLIC by POLICY_REPRESENTATION (there's a single one).

I guess the original coder just mixed both names since they both begin by RE

To sum up my current thought process:
I think Reformation and Religious Tolerance should just be merged or RT just thrown away, I hate religious tolerance, it doesn't reward a strong religion, it's unpredictible, insignificant before late game and is a mess to change (and making the free prophet the bottom policy instead of the finisher). I'd keep my ideas regarding the upper part of the tree: A bit more FPT and some culture. Theocracy is already very good. Then I could use the middle square (currently religious tolerance) for something unique. I'd very much like something rewarding a strong faith or great prophet I've thought about these:
-Happiness per shrines
-Some yield (culture, food, production or science) every time a great prophet is born or expanded, maybe as a function of followers (inhouse and/or forreign)
-Some unique faith purchasable building giving one yield or happiness
-Some %bonus to the Great Temple

Finally I'll move on to expand and modify beliefs

 

[Sorinth]

That's why I think
1. Free Shrines in Opener (so you invest Culture but NOT production/gold) +2 Fpt capital... so it really pushes you towards that first prophet (4 fpt with the first 2 policies and no new cities/faith pantheons)

2. Looking at faith benefits besides just getting the religion.. (reason for the reformation beliefs)

Of course one of the nice things about that is that it means
Other civs taking piety mean THEY will get a religion earlier... weakening those who Don't take Piety and just go for Faith Pantheon/Stonhenge (which will be the only but risky options for those who don't take Piety)

But it also means you'll be getting a crazy amount if you do have good terrain and go piety. My main concern is that we are bringing Piety up to the strongest faith situation which is arguably too strong. Free shrines is a good way of lowering the investment that Piety needs to make, but that investment is still too low for non-Piety players.

Offering uses for Faith beyond religion is probably the best thing. That way even if you fail to get a religion you haven't wasted everything. Maybe allowing you to Faith buy Great Works of Art?

That's basically why I'd preffer Piety to have additional bonus through religion/religion_buildings. If Piety is only a faith generator tree (like it is right now) we have the situation you're describing where it's not worth it if you already have another mean to get a good FPT.
But if instead Piety only marginally helps with Religion in the beginning AND get UNIQUE bonuses out of it then I can see (if well design) someone having a good faith terrain to truly consider taking the tree.
That's also why I don't consider the argument that Piety can get happiness through religion a good argument, like you said there is an opportunity cost.

You could see Reformation Belief and Theocracy being already something in that direction.

I also want to remind you that I already plan to boost early piety FPT by 1 or 2 since I agree the early faith of piety is a bit lacking. With this you'd be between 3 or 4 FPT in the early game, that is quite a lot for only one city with no pantheon. That's as much as the best pantheon can deliver at this point and once you make a second city with a shrine it quickly gets higher and you would also get your own pantheon for more faith, or something else. If it's still really underpowered quick plays shall prove it.

In your liberty/tradition posts you suggested aqueducts be cheaper to build for everyone as a way to reduce the power of getting free aqueducts. It's basically the same situation with Piety/Faith, except religion has too little of a cost (With the right pantheon) so my increasing the cost of religion Piety is strengthened without any other changes. If you normally have to build 3-4 shrines and 1 or 2 temples in order to found a religion suddenly Piety's bonuses look a lot better, the faster builds, and extra faith will mean you can invest much less time/resources to get your religion and so can do other things instead.

 

[Acken]

Yes don't worry I really got your meaning I just don't think religion should be so hard to get that it forces 3-4 shrines and 2 temples to get a prophet. That certainly is not how it seems to have been designed at least.

For example, I'm okay with a tradition player grabbing stone circles and pumping 6FPT (let's say 2 shrines 2 quarries) somewhere around turn 40 and getting his prophet at turn 60ish. Meanwhile with no pantheon into account the Piety player gets in the same situation 5FPT, with probably a way earlier 3FPT. Then as soon as temples and additional cities start to kick in the Piety player will always have a better faith. And then at 6policies he also gets a free prophet for the enhancement. And meanwhile missionaries are cheaper.

No I think that situation is fine, either increasing FPT even more or nerfing everyone else would create too big a gap that there is just no chance for a non piety player to even get a slice of the cake.

Instead I'm more going along these lines:

Offering uses for Faith beyond religion is probably the best thing. That way even if you fail to get a religion you haven't wasted everything.

And I don't think you can fail to get a religion taking piety with the current proposed early bonus in faith and culture in the tree. And then if what you get for extra faith in Piety is attractive enough, it suddenly mean the faith bonus of the tree are more attractive.

I ran a test. On Deity standard with these changes:
-Non Piety civ (Alexander)
-Took an average pantheon, god king, 1FPT (could have taken way better, but for the test I took something weaker)
-Got a Religion on turn 60 and enhanced it turn 66. 3rd Religion 2nd enhancer.

Looks way fine that way to me no need to make the gap bigger (wonder if it's not even too strong to have the great prophet on 5th policy rather than 6th)

P.S: Worth mentioning that I tested an increase of the base CPT of the Palace from 1 to 2. While this helps every tree, it helps a tree like Piety without culture in its opener more and decrease the impact of an early culture ruin (relatively speaking). In my test, the opening of Piety (firsts policies) is very fine that way, the culture go in fast enough, the faith bonuses kick in at a good rate allowing a sub70 prophet without even a pantheon and you'll get your enhancement early. Then it's time to pop missionaries and prophets.