Rate the Beliefs - the results

Here are the results from the Rate the Beliefs threads (part I, part II, part III, part IV). The results are in each group show by descending rating, with notes posted where votes indicate a boost (votes below 2.0) or a nerf (votes above 4.0) would be appropriate. Feel free to propose changes in this thread.

Part I - Pantheon beliefs (12 votes)
4.3 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate [nerf?]
4.0 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route [nerf?]
3.2 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles
3.2 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries
3.1 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps
3.1 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
3.0 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
2.9 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+
2.9 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
2.8 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
2.8 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+
2.8 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
2.8 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
2.8 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
2.7 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength
2.6 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
2.5 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
2.2 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders
1.9 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city [boost?]
1.8 - Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization [boost?]
1.5 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth [boost]
1.4 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest [boost]

Part II - Founder beliefs (16 votes)
4.8 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion [nerf]
4.4 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion [nerf?]
3.4 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
2.9 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
2.5 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations
2.4 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
2.1 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
1.6 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion [boost?]
0.4 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion [boost]

Part III - Follower beliefs (12 votes)
4.4 - Pagodas: Use Faith to purchase Pagodas (+2 Faith, +2 Culture, +2 Happiness) [nerf?]
3.8 - Cathedrals: Use Faith to purchase Cathedrals (+1 Faith, +3 Culture, +1 Happiness, Artist Specialist slot)
3.6 - Religious Community: +1% Production for each follower (max +15%)
3.5 - Religious Center: Temples provide +2 Happiness in cities with 5 followers
3.2 - Mosques: Use Faith to purchase Mosques (+3 Faith, +2 Culture, +1 Happiness)
3.1 - Asceticism: Shrines provide +1 Happiness in Cities with 3 followers
3.0 - Feed the World: Shrines and Temples provide +1 Food each in city
2.9 - Monasteries: Use Faith to purchase Monasteries (+2 Faith, +2 Culture, more with Wine or Incense)
2.7 - Holy Warriors: Use Faith to purchase pre-Industrial land units
2.6 - Religious Art: Hermitage provides +8 Culture in city
2.2 - Choral Music: Temples provide +2 Culture in Cities with 5 followers
2.1 - Peace Gardens: Gardens provide +2 Happiness in city
2.0 - Swords into Plowshares: 15% faster Growth rate for city if not at war
1.9 - Divine Inspiration: Each World Wonder provides +2 Faith in city [boost?]
1.8 - Guruship: +2 Production if city has a Specialist [boost?]
0.6 - Liturgical Drama: Amphitheaters provide +1 Faith in cities with 3 followers [boost]

Part IV - Enhancer beliefs (13 votes)
4.7 - Religious Texts: Religion spreads 34% faster (68% with Printing Press) [nerf]
4.4 - Itinerant Preachers: Religion spreads to cities 30% further away [nerf?]
3.2 - Holy Order: Missionaries and Inquisitors cost 30% less Faith
2.7 - Messiah: Prophets 25% stronger and earned with 25% less Faith
2.5 - Just War: +20% Combat near enemy Cities that follow this Religion
2.3 - Defender of the Faith: +20% Combat near friendly Cities that follow this Religion
2.0 - Missionary Zeal: Missionary conversion strength +25%
1.7 - Religious Unity: Religion spreads to friendly city-states at double rate [boost?]
1.1 - Reliquary: Gain 50 Faith each time a Great Person is expended [boost]

In addition to this, my own oppinions and suggestions for changes would be:

Pantheon beliefs:
- Fertility Rites and Messenger gets a slight front run, but I don't think there's anything too much off scale here, so I would probably leave those two as is.
- God of War: I would probably leave this one as is, perhaps increase radius to 5 tiles, but I don't think people discard this one based on that, so not sure it matters much.
- Ancestor Worship: Could probably be 2 culture for each Shrine, that would make it much more attractive.
- Religious Settlements: This one just sucks. Not sure if even a major boost (like 50 % faster instead of 15 %) would make it more attractive, so probably needs to have some secondary effect added - perhaps gaining faith each time a new tile is aquired?
- Dance Of The Aurora: This one is also plain week. Making it apply to forested tundra tiles would help a lot - after all, Desert Folklore also applies to hills and oasis in deserts.

Founder beliefs
- Tithe is just plain overpowered. Making it only count for 4 people in the same city would cut it back severely and would also make it distinctly different from Church Property: CP for wide (many cities), Tithe for tall (many citizens).
- Ceremonial Burial: Very powerful, but not easy to change slightly in a meaningful way, and is probably good as is. Perhaps making it local happiness (think it adds global - no?).
- Papal Primacy: Needs a boost. It's worthless when you are already friends/allies with the CS when you spread the religion, so maybe give an instant relationship boost also first time CS is converted to your religion?
- Pilgrimage: Yuck. Even after the patch (where it's up to 2 faith) this one sucks big time. Not sure what to do about it. Giving you faith for your own cities following would help, making it more predictable, but even so, some other bonus that triggers when a city is converted should probably be included.

Follower beliefs
- Pagodas: I would cut this one back 1 on culture, so it's 2 , 1 , 2 instead of the current 2-2-2. This would only be fair because everything else equal, 1 is better than 1 or 1 , and since Pagodas as the only building gets 2 it's better balanced with a total gain of 5 instead of 6.
- Divine Inspiration and Guruship: I'm not sure whether these should have a slight boost. Increasing bonus to +3 instead of +2 with each of them might make them better - +3 production at least would make Guruship very interesting if you go wide.
- Liturgical Dramas: Ugh, this one is just plain horrible. Needs to be at least +3 faith to just be marginally interesting, and still then I have problems seeing who would take it. But at least the yield then wouldn't be just rediculous.

Enhancer beliefs
- Religious Texts: I would cut down the bonus from +34 % / +68 % to +34 % / +50 % to take a bit off the edge on this one. I guess the passive religion spreaders will always be attractive and that's ok, but this one is too much as is. Maybe the bonus should scale with the number of believers in the city performing the influence?
- Itinerant Preachers: Strong, but probably fine as is. Cutting it down to +20 % would be possible, but would probably make it too weak. I guess the power of this one is also very dependant on map type. One could make the gain scale with believer number in the city, so that influence radius is increased with 2 % for each beliver capped at 30 % - this would mean smaller cities didn't reach as far.
- Religious Unity: Seems weak compared to the others. Perhaps giving a bonus when a CS is first converted, like suggested for Papal Primacy, would help with this one?
- Reliquary: Strongly needs a boost. Giving a discount on purchasing Great People with faith would be an interesting option for this one imo.

Perhaps Religious Settlements would be more attractive if it replicated the benefits of a Krepost (25% reduction in gold and culture costs of buying tiles). As is, it's just 15% reduction in culture cost, which is a yawner.

The problem with making Ceremonial Burial only local happiness is that it would essentially destroy a large part of its current value (1 happy from foreign cities following your religion).

On tundra faith pantheon, I agree -- having to strip off forests makes this almost unusable -- should be like desert folklore. But, if you are playing celts and get a buffed tundra faith pantheon, it would probably be OP.

while i agree with the ratings i don't think anything should be nerfed or boosted. part of the religion system is the race to get the best beliefs. if everything was balanced their would be no penalty for being late to the game.

legaceez said:

while i agree with the ratings i don't think anything should be nerfed or boosted. part of the religion system is the race to get the best beliefs. if everything was balanced their would be no penalty for being late to the game.

Click to expand...

This ^

Cheers.

Isn't One with Nature is now +4 Faith?

It is not to be trifled with when combined with a faith mountain and an early second settler to grab it. I was getting +10 Faith by turn 25 and totally put the smack down on religion for half the map.What happened was, I got the first religion around turn 50.

One with Nature is +4 faith (+8 with Spain ==> get the GBR for +16, Uluru or Kailesh for +20, or Sinai for +24 -- wow!).

To be honest I don't get why fertility rites is the top. 10% is so miniscule. And isn't the 10% based on the net food you have and not the total food you generate? I guess it wins based on how general it is but it feels kinda weak "general" bonus. I'd take the +1 production or science any day, especially how useful it can be in early game.

Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate

There would be a few ways to slow this down, but I'm not so sure it needs it. It's strong early, but swords to plowshares gives a bigger boost and only requires you to be at peace, which isn't hard to avoid for much more than 2/3 of the time. The difference, I think, has more to do with timing. Growth bonuses die off as cities get big.

Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route

This one is too good. Make it +1 only, but redirect it to the capital, allowing multipliers to make it better in the long run, but also giving enemy spies a prime target and hurting the early tech boost it provides.

God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city

It's more underappreciated, I'd say, than week. The AI is sending more units into wars now too, making this a better pick post patch.

Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization

The problem here is that if you are around pasture or plantation luxes, you likely have more than 1 per city average to add to your culture game, and you certainly have more jungle if you get a jungle start. I don't know how to fix it, because it's just too broken.

Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth

Boost indirectly in next expansion, making more civs like the Iroquois for which this would be the primary choice. No other civs really value fast boarder growth currently.

Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest

Yeah, needs to apply to all tundra tiles OR double the faith boost, giving a person a choice of poor tiles with good faith or better tiles with no faith. Maybe also make it work for coastal tiles adjacent to snow and tundra, and +1 faith for whales as well, extending the reach of potential faith.

Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion

For this to be the majority religion for pop to get counted and you have an acceptably ok-ish belief.

Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion

Slightly reduce the happiness bonus. I don't know what would be fair, but honestly I'd probably chop it right in half.

Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion

I'm inclined to say it's just situational, but I have thought I'd pick it if it gave +20, allowing for friendship with this and protection. Giving it that option to maintain friendship with CS's would be a pretty solid boost.

Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion

Add +2 gold as well. All those travelers will need to buy something as well. I believe it is 2 faith post patch as well, no? +2 faith and 2 gold for each foreign city? There are situations I'd take that over +2 gold for every city or +1 for every 4 pop where it's the majority.

Pagodas: Use Faith to purchase Pagodas (+2 Faith, +2 Culture, +2 Happiness)

Overrated. It's not the only bonus that gives you 2 happiness, it doesn't give enough culture for a culture game, and it takes quite a long while to pay for itself. The +2 faith and culture might sometimes be worth it at times over religious center, but it's the cost of a missionary each, which is a pretty harsh price to pay.

Divine Inspiration: Each World Wonder provides +2 Faith in city

I'd add a trigger for +1 happiness in cities with 2 or 3 world wonders or more. Alternatively, make it for national wonders as well.

Guruship: +2 Production if city has a Specialist

Totally change to 1 free specialist in cities with 4 or more. That's a free one per city late game.

Liturgical Drama: Amphitheaters provide +1 Faith in cities with 3 followers

Make it a founder belief. With how they work, every city, no mater the majority religion, would give you 1 faith if it had 3 followers and an amphitheater. Then simply give it 2 faith, making it interesting for faith generation all the sudden.

Religious Texts: Religion spreads 34% faster (68% with Printing Press)

If it really needs to be hit, and I already don't consider it too strong, but simply take away the boost to religion spreading before the Printing Press. It would only become strong for a strategy that gets it quickly and give other religions time to spread before this boost would kick in.

Itinerant Preachers: Religion spreads to cities 30% further away

There's almost no way to touch this. It gives you 3 more tiles to spread religion. Any reduction would have to be fully by the hex, and any condition applied to get the bonus would need to be fairly easily reachable. It's a bit hard to say how something needs to be changed when it's only 3 little hexes, but it's so good...

Religious Unity: Religion spreads to friendly city-states at double rate

Make CS's spread religion. If they got occasional missionaries (or would buy religious units, given a bit of a faith boost), this would get really interesting really quickly.

Reliquary: Gain 50 Faith each time a Great Person is expended

Missionary strength conversion to the city which controls the land in which each GP is used. Prophets that spread religion do not trigger this ability. Just make sure the AI doesn't get mad for someone spreading religion this way, and you get yourself quite a nice way of spreading religion.

legaceez said:

while i agree with the ratings i don't think anything should be nerfed or boosted. part of the religion system is the race to get the best beliefs. if everything was balanced their would be no penalty for being late to the game.

Click to expand...

The religion system is a race to get the best beliefs for what your goal is, not to get the strongest beliefs overall.

If there were a founder belief that gives you +1 culture in your capital per follower, it's not ok, because it's so good it'll be taken any time any situation.

You want civs racing for beliefs that are best for them, rather than racing for the best for everyone. If it's a simple checklist of best to worst beliefs, religion isn't working well.

Rooftrellen said:

The religion system is a race to get the best beliefs for what your goal is, not to get the strongest beliefs overall.

If there were a founder belief that gives you +1 culture in your capital per follower, it's not ok, because it's so good it'll be taken any time any situation.

You want civs racing for beliefs that are best for them, rather than racing for the best for everyone. If it's a simple checklist of best to worst beliefs, religion isn't working well.

Click to expand...

But it isn't a checklist of best to worst. Those are averages and not everyone agreed with the result. And some are really situational dependent on the map.

Cheers.

manu-fan said:

But it isn't a checklist of best to worst. Those are averages and not everyone agreed with the result. And some are really situational dependent on the map.

Cheers.

Click to expand...

I understand and agree, but I didn't mean to imply every belief is strictly better or worse than all others.

I was talking to the idea that it's ok that any belief is strictly better or worse than others because it's a race to the best. The beliefs should be situational but equal.

Belief A and belief B should be different, help in different ways, be good for different empires, etc. Belief A should not be better than belief B in all situations except when you plan to spread your religion heavily as part of a science game.

Ceremonial burial is better than interfaith dialogue in all situations except when you plan to spread your religion heavily as part of a science game...they should be equal and just best for different strategies.

legaceez said:

while i agree with the ratings i don't think anything should be nerfed or boosted. part of the religion system is the race to get the best beliefs. if everything was balanced their would be no penalty for being late to the game.

Click to expand...

This is a common misconception. I don't think all beliefs should be equal - I'm fine with having a spread - within a certain range (which I tentatively labeled here as 2.0-4.0 in scores). Problem is when you have something that is clearly and universally better than the alternatives - say, Tithe or Pagodas - it kills the fun, because you will always end up making the same choices (unless you go specifically for something that is sub-optimal).

legaceez said:

while i agree with the ratings i don't think anything should be nerfed or boosted. part of the religion system is the race to get the best beliefs. if everything was balanced their would be no penalty for being late to the game.

Click to expand...

I'm going to agree with this too. There's a good deal of investment in hammers and building maintenance that go into religion, so I don't see any belief so powerful it needs a nerf. Even Tithe doesn't usually start paying big returns until around mid-game and then "big" in my experience is about 50 gpt. I don't know, maybe the ability of some AI (Ethiopia) to dominate a map with a shockingly early and powerful religion on harder difficulties is too much. So, maybe Religious Texts, or getting +2 faith with a Monument? Maybe.

They just need to be slightly balanced. For example, there's really no reason ever to pick Dance of the Auroras since even if you're in a tundra start:
-tundra without forest generally suck
-You will likely have lots of deer, so Goddess of the Hunt will totally dominate it.

The number of half-decent non-forested tundra tiles isn't huge (a few deer here or there). Giving it to all tundra tiles would at least make it viable. I mean, I've had desert starts where I have tons of floodplains, oasis, etc.. tiles that are very viable tiles.

Otherwise, it's nice having variety. My problem with Fertility Rites is it's too general (ie. always useful). I think it's more fun to have the tile-specific ones. Even something like God of Craftsmen, I'd rather see it as +1 production per mineable resource (iron, silver, gold, etc...). It might not be a whole lot stronger, but it would be much more interesting. I'd probably switch Fertility Rites to be something like +1 food per Wheat (or maybe Wheat+Sheep), which would still be strong, but more situationally interesting. Similar to Messenger of the Gods - maybe something cool like +2 science per horse tile?

UWHabs said:

They just need to be slightly balanced. For example, there's really no reason ever to pick Dance of the Auroras since even if you're in a tundra start:
-tundra without forest generally suck
-You will likely have lots of deer, so Goddess of the Hunt will totally dominate it.
(...)
Otherwise, it's nice having variety. My problem with Fertility Rites is it's too general (ie. always useful).

Click to expand...

That pretty much hits the head on the nail. Bascially, every belief needs to be useful sometimes and no belief should be the best everytime.

I'm not sure Fertility Rites is actually the best everytime, so I don't think it's too bad as it is, but then again, I scored FR lower than average, so maybe I just haven't realized how good it is.

Well, in my most recent game as france, one of the lower ranked Pantheons "God of the open sky" was completely OP. My capitol had two separate horse rescources, a cattle, and a sheep (+4 culture) my second city had 2 sheep (+6 culture), my third city had 2 hourse rescources, two cattle, and a sheep (+11) and my last city had 2 sheep (+13). I know this is an exceptionally rare situation, but still goes to show that some of the weaker abilities can still shine very well. (this was the shortest culture game I played, as my follower was cathedrals.)

NotSure said:

I don't know, maybe the ability of some AI (Ethiopia) to dominate a map with a shockingly early and powerful religion on harder difficulties is too much.

Click to expand...

+1
I have seen ethiopia get a religion by turn 31 on deity. I just can't understand how they did it. It's so early it's essentially game over for your own religion to have any chance to spread.

Good summary.
Patheons almost good (except aurora) but everyone always go tithe + spread + production + pagoda-

I don't even necessarily agree that some of these are too strong/weak but these are just a few ideas to throw out there since that's what we voted on as a group. I tried to include a few unlikely ideas just so I wasn't repeating what others have already said

Pantheon beliefs:
- Fertility Rites could be lessened by a few percentages but other than that it's fine as is.
-Messenger of the Gods could be +1 instead of +2 at cities with . I don't see how that would lessen its desirability but maybe I'm wrong, you guys tell me.
- God of War is fine. Others are better and that's why it was voted so low but if you are warmongering at a steady pace (meaning you're always close to your cities) then it's not the worst in the world. If people really don't like this, then just give it a larger boost for battles won.
- Ancestor Worship. Someone said +2 would make it more attractive. I like that idea.
- Religious Settlements. Yeah, they should just get rid of this honestly. It didn't show in the results, but if there is enough of a fanbase for this one outside of CivFanatics then it's a nice one to have just for the fact that it provides something different.
- Dance Of The Aurora. Honestly, if you find yourself with a lot of tundra then this one is great. The only thing they need to change is tiles without forest - it should include forest. With this and the Norwegian Ski Infantry it almost seems like the devs thought tundra was more useful than it really is.

Founder beliefs ( I don't have much to say about founders):
- Tithe. Yep, a nerf is in order.
- Ceremonial Burial. No nerf, imo.
- Papal Primacy. Never used this one so I won't comment on it.
- Pilgrimage is better with the patch, but I would still never, ever ever ever choose it.

Follower beliefs:
- Pagodas. I don't think it should give +2 - makes it too far too appealing and basically manages your for you. Maybe instead add or , but then that would make it too similar to cathedrals and mosques so I don't really know how you would change this.
- Divine Inspiration. How about... +4 for each world wonder. Additional faith for each wonder added on after, not including national. That works for me because I don't manage to get many wonders but if you are finding ways to roll out the wonders then it might be too much
- Guruship. Yet to try this one so won't comment.
- Liturgical Dramas. Somebody said make this a founder belief. That might not be such a bad thing.

Enhancer beliefs:
- Religious Texts. It's fine as is but the 64% is way too much at Printing Press. Instead it should be 'get a free missionary' at printing press but if that's too odd then it should just lessen the percentage considerably.
- Itinerant Preachers. Keep it the same, but make the AI more likely to pick this. Historically, the ones with the edge on religion spread it far and wide.
- Religious Unity I think this is perfectly fine for those situational map starts. Perhaps have it so religion is 100% locked in the CS (not locked as the official religion of the CS, but rather just unable to ever be removed from the CS) and once it converts to CS then it spreads quicker upon Printing Press from the CS itself.
- Reliquary. How about gain 80 for each great person expended and missionaries do not have the 'unwelcomed evangelist' penalty?