[Complex] (7-NS) Remove Inquisition, New Reformation "Underground Sects"

Status
Not open for further replies.

Stalker0

Baller Magnus
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
Messages
11,094
Proposal: Remove the Inquisitor enhancer from the game. This would open up a slot for a new enhancer to be crafted.

New Reformation

Underground Sects
  • Gain 100 spy points
  • Spies generate +50 religious pressure in cities, +2 happiness if the city is foreign.
  • +5 Network Points per turn, if your spy is in a foreign city whose majority religion is yours.

Rationale: Inquisition is simply a badly designed enhancer. It tries to shoehorn inquisitors into something they are not. They are a specialty unit, not one to be spammed, and so the belief never has gotten proper strength compared to other much better enhancers. Its time to remove the design in favor of a better one.

However, some of the non-inquisitor elements of the belief are interesting to be used in a new way. This new reformation is a spy focused one (which we have never really had before). Its a reformation to time it better for when spies normally come out, and lets a player really focus on spy play if that is their desire.
 
Don't you need to also suggest a new enhancer to replace the enhancer you're removing?
 
Don't you need to also suggest a new enhancer to replace the enhancer you're removing?
you were 30 seconds slower with this objection than I was expecting :)

(rereading the congress guide) Ultimately there is no congress rule against removing an element without replacement....and as far as I know this would not cause any breaks in the religion system today (though happy to be corrected if this is the case).

I do want a new enhancer but I think it needs some solid discussion, and I'm excited to get this one one line.


But the counterpoint is....perhaps people vote against this, not because they don't like the change but because they don't want to drop the enhancer number, so am I setting up this proposal for failure because of that? possibly, I'm curious what other people think on that one.
 
I would fail it for that, personally.

If you remove an enhancer you have created a bottleneck for enhancers; it means the game can have 1 less religion in the game, max.
 
I like the subterfuge theme on the proposal. Some thoughts on it:

  • The +5 NP is not going to work well against other founders, which are over half of the players, and is useless when rigging a city state; this ability looks quite niche as it is.
  • It has practically zero yields, in contrast to the original Inquisition. It could have something like "+25 faith when rigging election or conducting a spy mission in a foreign city, scaling with Era" (similar to National Intelligence Agency).

Don't you need to also suggest a new enhancer to replace the enhancer you're removing?
(rereading the congress guide) Ultimately there is no congress rule against removing an element without replacement....and as far as I know this would not cause any breaks in the religion system today (though happy to be corrected if this is the case).

I do want a new enhancer but I think it needs some solid discussion, and I'm excited to get this one one line.
I don't think Underground Sect has to be a reformation, instead of an enhancer. Part of it is half of Inquisition's effects, the matter is mainly on the power of extra spy points; if these spy points were replaced by something tamer, like the yields on spy missions/rigging, it would fit the power expected out of an enhancer.
 
I don't think Underground Sect has to be a reformation, instead of an enhancer. Part of it is half of Inquisition's effects, the matter is mainly on the power of extra spy points; if these spy points were replaced by something tamer, like the yields on spy missions/rigging, it would fit the power expected out of an enhancer.
Would it be ok to have an enhancer that literally did nothing until spies came out? That said, I honestly don;t know if an early spy would actually be that crazy. Remember we have a +1000 security bonus until everone gets a spy, so it would really only be useful for Cs rigging until then, or maybe a diplomat.
 
I’m adamant that tech-locked abilities are the purview of reformation beliefs, and should be disqualifying everywhere else.

My More Beliefs mod has 3 alternative enhancers. They are all already DLL-integrated. You could take your pick from those.

(Enhancer) - Emirates
Religion spreads to friendly City-States at triple rate
Religious pressure via Trade Routes tripled
+2:c5science: and :c5culture: for Every Active :trade:Trade Route
(Enhancer) - Animism
Missionaries ignore terrain Movement costs.
+1:c5food::c5culture: to unimproved Features, Lakes, and Natural Wonders
(Enhancer) - Word of God
Missionaries generate 10:c5influence: Influence, Scaling with Era, when targeting a City-State.
Can purchase Diplomatic Units with :c5faith:Faith.
 
Would it be ok to have an enhancer that literally did nothing until spies came out?
If you want it to have some use before spies come out, you could extend the "yields on spy rigging/mission" to something that doesn't require spies, like "and converting a city to your religion for the first time".

Also, you can get early spies with Statecraft (Foreign Service, can be picked as second policy in the tree), which lets you get 100 Spy Points by early Medieval. A spy-related belief is more likely to be picked by someone going Statecraft anyways.
 
Last edited:
Or as another alternative, you are specifically proposing to remove a defensive enhancer. Here are some ideas for a new defensive enhancer:

Resilience
Cities following your religion had 25% resistance to foreign pressure. Faith Purchases in cities following your religion adds religious pressure equal to 2x the faith cost.
 
Would it be ok to have an enhancer that literally did nothing until spies came out? That said, I honestly don;t know if an early spy would actually be that crazy. Remember we have a +1000 security bonus until everone gets a spy, so it would really only be useful for Cs rigging until then, or maybe a diplomat.
An early spy doesn't seem much, but that depends on the balance of rigging elections on a city state, which is currently very strong. If that gets toned down, then yeah, we could have a balanced enhancer that gives 100 spy points.

That said, the current Inquisition belief is on the weak side, and your proposal has half of its effect. So, maybe having something as strong as an early spy isn't an issue. We could try an enhancer that has just the two first points of your proposal; replacing inquisitors with spies may be enough to reinvigorate this enhancer.
 
Faith Purchases in cities following your religion adds religious pressure equal to 2x the faith cost.
It should also counter-scale with game speed, ie buying a missionary before Renaissance should give the same amount of pressure. So, gamespeed modifier (quick : x0.67 ; epic : x1.5 ; marathon : x3) should act as a divider on pressure generated from buying.
 
Spy Points is an irreversible instant benefit; it shouldn't be put onto something that can be lost (a belief).
 
Spy Points is an irreversible instant benefit; it shouldn't be put onto something that can be lost (a belief).
you don't lose all of the yields you gain from CoE when you lose that belief, or any of the various beliefs, or especially the religious buildings (once built, always stay). I get the point, but lets not kid ourselves, lots of religious belief give you things that leave a legacy for your civ even if that believe is later lost. This one just happens to be a little more active but its not really that different.
 
It's more in line of having a belief that gives a free great person, or any instant yields on adoption.

An extreme case is a non-founder capturing a previously-captured holy city and choosing to liberate it. Even though the belief is gained for a split second, the attacker already gets the spies and will not lose them.
 
As a reformation belief, other civs may get its benefits if you spread to them. I'm not sure how it will work for this proposal, but it may end giving spy points to multiple civs as proposed right now, not just to the founder.
 
Coming back to this conversation. Right now we are internally looking at this as a replacement Enhancer

(Enhancer) - Animism
Missionaries ignore terrain Movement costs.
+1:c5food::c5culture: to unimproved Features, Lakes, and Natural Wonders

This one was proposed by PDAN many congresses ago and it did pass, but the sponsor couldn't find time to meet the implementation. We are discussing a fast track approval if we can get another sponsor. That would fill the gap left by inquisition.

To be clear, this proposal doesn't have to pass to include Animism, I'm just noting we may have a working solution to the concern about losing an enhancer.
 
AI should be able to avoid improving those if there isn't a net gain, BUT they won't be able to score Animism with this in mind. They'll only say "yay yields!" when they have a swath of forest that's going to be improved soon anyway.

Just a note; I'm not against this.
 
On forest/jungle it doesn’t compete all that well. It’s good for lake starts, atolls, natural wonders, and of course the spread bonus.
 
On forest/jungle it doesn’t compete all that well. It’s good for lake starts, atolls, natural wonders, and of course the spread bonus.
Yeah, but AI won't know this, unless more deliberate scoring is implemented to check whether the feature is improveable.
 
It’s close enough in value, especially for places where you can’t set up good triangles, that I would consider the tenet close to AI neutral.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom