[Complex] (6-57) Weaken Religious Pressure with Era

[pineappledan]

Current situation:
All cities produce 6.5 pressure per turn passively for the majority religion in that city.
This pressure travels along trade routes and uses trade route logic. It drops off gradually with distance.
Trade route distance bonuses from roads, railroads, caravansaries and techs increase the number of cities any receiving city is exposed to.
The end result is that passive religious pressure gets stronger as the game progresses. Meanwhile, active spreading gets weaker because missionaries get more expensive, but don't get any stronger
Defense against foreign passive pressure also gets weaker, because inquisitor faith costs also scale with era. Inquisitors do not block passive pressure, but they can remove it by expending themselves for a remove heresy action.

Proposal:
Passive pressure from all cities in the world is reduced by 1 when the world enters Renaissance, Modern, and Information eras, scaling with game speed.

ie. Pressure is reduced to 5.5 at Renaissance, 4.5 at Modern, and 3.5 at Info​

The tech era is determined by the tech leader entering the next era. This is the same as how free spies on era change are determined

Reasoning:
Because of how trade routes get longer and longer as the game progresses, Passive pressure gets stronger and stronger.
Meanwhile, religious defense and active spread mechanics get weaker and weaker. Passive pressure doesn't behave in the same way as the rest of the religious mechanics, which tend to fade into the background as the later eras unlock.
Changing how passive pressure travels is too hard, and creates more problems than it solves, but reducing the amount of pressure generated at its source is relatively easier.
Renaissance was picked as the starting point, because it is thematic. It is also the era that missionaries/inquisitors first cost scaler is applied.

Complex Proposal: DLL + Database Changes

 

[azum4roll]

Again, pressure scales with game speed, so applying this to Marathon just makes pressure negative in late game.

This is the same as how free spies on era change are determined

No it's not. This is only how the first spies are given. Game Era also doesn't work like that.

 

[pineappledan]

If pressure scales with game speed, then maybe the subtraction should also scale with gamespeed. I don't know how gamespeed affects this, so I'm open to suggestions

 

[Captain Carrot]

The base value being 6.5 means that pressure can have decimals, right? So maybe the per-era reduction should just be 15% (6.5*0.15=0.975)?

 

[Rekk]

The base value being 6.5 means that pressure can have decimals, right? So maybe the per-era reduction should just be 15% (6.5*0.15=0.975)?

One decimal only. Pressure inside the DLL is ten times (as an integer) larger than what is shown on screen.

 

[Amask]

Changing how passive pressure travels is too hard, and creates more problems than it solve

Can you elaborate?

I for one didn't see any problems with the way it worked originally in BNW (propagating like a radio wave).
It might not be realistic, but I don't see any practical problems with it. Sometimes a remote mountain town might get converted sooner than it feels like it should. Meh.

Seems to me like the "spread by trade" method is the one that creates more problems than it solves.
It's far too common to see massive areas of religionless cities on a pangaea.
It's also common to see a single religion dominate half the map, and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it because the pressure is in the hundreds.

I support your proposal, but like so many other things in the mod, I feel it's attacking the symptoms rather than the source of the problem, and just adding more complexity.
Perhaps it's worth it to step back and reevaluate.

 

[rkkn]

ok so
passive pressure gets bigger as the game goes on (by viritue of more cities and greater spread distance)
and all yields get bigger as the game goes on. and all other numbers for that matters (combat strength, influence, etc)
and missionaries get... less effective (same output for higher cost).

Seems like missionaries are the outlier here. Why do they get weaker? Seems to me like it would make more sense to just not make missionaries fall off.

 

[pineappledan]

Can you elaborate?

having a thing that travels in all directions, from all cities, every turn, following its own pathing logic unique to itself was a massive computational burden. VP freed up a lot of memory by making trade pathing pull double-duty.

 

[AndreyK]

Yes, I also think that missioners spread power should be growing as they faith cost increases.

 

[azum4roll]

Note that pressure nerfs may not be needed anymore since caravan speed (and thus trade route range) has been nerfed a lot.

 

[Rekk]

Note that pressure nerfs may not be needed anymore since caravan speed (and thus trade route range) has been nerfed a lot.

What nerfed caravan speed?

 

[dhrgusdlrns]

How about adding atheism or irreligion in later era?
G&K game scenario, Into the Renaissance, this scenario has an event of new religion appearance, which converts many people.
By making its passive pressure powerful. it weakens passive pressure of old powerful religion.

 

[azum4roll]

Note to MAGI: the below should be added to the voting thread since pressure is based on trade route distance.

Below movement costs are using arbitrary units where 120 units = 1 movement point (the cost of flat featureless unimproved grassland).
All mentions of improvements ignore ownership and whether they're pillaged.

Pre-4.0 land trade route movement cost, which this series of proposals was based off of (top conditions take precedence):
Along railroad: 30
Along road or railroad/road mix: 40
Along (same side of) river: 60
Iroquois, moving into trees but not across a river: 60
Oasis: 90

If not satisfying any of the above:
Base: 120
Rough terrain: +30
Hills: +15

4.2.5 land trade route movement cost (top conditions take precedence):
Along railroad: 50
Along road or railroad/road mix: 66
Iroquois, moving into trees but not across a river: 80
Songhai, along (same side of) river: 80
Along (same side of) river: 120

If not satisfying any of the above:
Base: 120
Non-Flood Plains/Oasis Desert, Snow, Forest, Jungle, Marsh: +30
Hills, if not Inca: +30

---

Land Trade Route max distance, for reference:
Base: 10
Machinery: +10
Bazaar: +50%
Caravansary: +50%
Trader Sid's: +100%

 

[Anarcomu]

Very interesting, just one question : how does distance affect pressure from religion ?
Also, I assume max distance is calculated based on trade route movement cost, and not absolute amount of tile. Is it true ?

 

[azum4roll]

Relative distance % between city A and city B = trade route distance between A and B / (max trade route distance * religion distance modifiers)
Get the minimum % out of (A, B, land), (A, B, sea), (B, A, land), (B, A, sea). Hope you understand what this means.

Pressure exerted from city A to city B = base pressure (6.5 in Standard) * pressure modifiers * (1 - relative distance %) ^ 2

 

[Anarcomu]

Get it, so to summarize :

• The bigger the max trade route distance, and the farther the religion can spread (orthodoxy), the closer you are considered to the other city,
• You check for the closest possible trade route, between land or sea, from your city or the other city,
• End pressure depend on base pressure, increase by modifiers ; reduced the further you are, on a square basis.
• This means that distance is a big factor, thus spread distance and max trade distance are especially important to spread far away.

Also, building road between empires is good too, but works both ways