(9-051) Religion II: Rework To Nonscaling Options

[hokath]

Motivation:
For me, Founder beliefs need to scale with the strength of the associated Religion. This requires you to spend Faith on Missionaries and is the central gameplay loop of Religion.
However there are some options that don't need you to do that at all. I personally think this is inadequate.
We can still have "domestic" options that don't require you spread to other people, but you should still need to spend a good amount of Faith.

Note: Founder yields are very powerful but don't tend to scale with era (although some do),
look at Holy Law with a possible 1250 Faith/Sci/Gold on Policy Unlock (roughly every 30 turns)
or at Revelation with 500 GAP/Faith/Culture on Tech unlock (roughly every 10 turns)

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Proposal:

• Theocratic Rule
  • renamed Pilgrimage
  • "We Love the King Day" boosts the Faith, Culture, and Gold output of a City by 15%.
  • +1 Gold, Faith, and Tourism in the Holy City for every 5 Followers of this Religion in Foreign Cities
  • max 500 Followers
• Divine Inheritance
  • Holy City produces +20% of its Yields when your Empire is in a Golden Age.
  • 1 Food, Production, and Golden Age Points in the Holy City for every 4 Followers of this Religion in owned Cities
    spread but to yourself!
  • max 200 Followers

Because nothing is lost in the Samsara, we keep these effects for later. So if you had a strategy that used them, you can still pick them up in your Religion (at an appropriate power level for their placement)

• Sacred Calendar
  • named "Feast Days"
    to separate a bit from Mayan UA
  • "We Love the King Day" boosts the Faith, Culture, and Gold output of a City by 10%.
  • +33% Great Person Rate in Holy City during Golden Ages.
  • +3 Golden Age Points and Gold in Holy City for every Foreign City following this Religion.
  • Missionaries of this Religion are 25% stronger.
• Symbolism
  • Holy City gains +5 Golden Age Points
  • +2 Great Person Points per turn for all Great People.
  • Reduce minimum Policy requirement for World Wonders by 1
  • gain +2 Happiness for every 8 Cities following this Religion
  • max 24 Cities
  • +33% Great Person Rate in Holy City during Golden Ages.
• Prophecy
  This is already very strong
  • Reduces minimum Policy requirement for Wonders by 1.
  • Prophets of this Religion are 25% stronger and cost 25% less Faith.
  • +3 to base Holy Site yields.
  • If this is the majority Religion, Follower reduction from rival Inquisitors and Prophets is halved.
• Orthodoxy
  • renamed "Ecumenism"
  • 20% (50% on Press) Spread Rate
  • 20% Spread Distance (down from 40%)
  • +200% Pressure to foreign Cities connected via Trade Routes.
  • Holy City gains +15% All Yields during a Golden Age.
• New Enhancer "Sacred Geometry"
  Keeps the GPP per turn effect removed from Symbolism
  • Expending a Great Engineer grants 25 Science and Faith for every City following this Religion
  • max 20 Cities
  • +2 Gold and Culture from all World Wonders
  • +5 Great Musician points in the Holy City.

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References:
Part of a series with

Thread '(9-050) Religion I: War Religion'

Jan 3, 2026

Motivation:
If you are a warmonger there is basically one Founder for you: Hero Worship. It has some quite wacky effects and doesn't really fit with the other Founders; it doesn't require you to spread your Faith or even have followers at all!
I think it would be more interesting to be able to choose from several options that also align with the idea that Founder beliefs are about how strong your Religion is.
Note: Founder yields are very powerful but don't tend to scale with era (although some do),
look at Holy Law with a possible 1250 Faith/Sci/Gold on Policy Unlock (roughly every...

• hokath
• Replies: 14
• Forum: Vox Populi Congress

• 

Implements some of the same changes that exist in

[Extension] Thread 'pineappledan, HungryForFood, & Recursive's New Beliefs'

Mar 27, 2020

Download Here

Spoiler New Beliefs :

(Pantheon) - God of Storms

2 in Cities with a Garrison.​

Pillaging a tile provides 15Faith and Production. Does not scale with Era.​

​

(Pantheon) - Trickster God

12Faith and Science when you complete a non-road Improvement. Does not scale with Era.​

(Founder) - City of God

Can build the Sacred Garden Wonder (+3 +5; +5 Food from all Holy Sites)​

Gain...​

• pineappledan
• Replies: 244
• Forum: Mods Repository

• 

 

[paul_soryu]

+3 Golden Age Points and Gold in Holy City for every Foreign City following this Religion.

This one is particularly busted when you conquer only a couple of cities from an enemy, including the Holy City, but leave them with all their other cities and their Religion.

 

[Stalker0]

At my first read, symbolism now seems OP and prophecy UP. Prophecy especially, not really sure why I would take it now

 

[pineappledan]

• Theocratic Rule
  • renamed Pilgrimage
  • "We Love the King Day" boosts the Faith, Culture, and Gold output of a City by 15%.
  • +1 Gold, Faith, and Tourism in the Holy City for every 5 Followers of this Religion in Foreign Cities
  • max 500 Followers
• Divine Inheritance
  • Holy City produces +20% of its Yields when your Empire is in a Golden Age.
  • 1 Food, Production, and Golden Age Points in the Holy City for every 4 Followers of this Religion in owned Cities
    spread but to yourself!
  • max 200 Followers

Is adding follower caps to these beliefs going to be new code, or will it work?

I would rather have 1 belief that gives yields per followers than have 2 beliefs that track where those followers are. It would just be cleaner.
Rewarding self-spread only is extremely limiting. It basically turns off the spread game; were you not going to convert your own cities?

Please consider something like this:
Divine Inheritance

• +1 Gold, Faith, and Tourism in the Holy City every turn for every 5 Followers of this Religion (Both foreign and domestic).
• Max of 250

It would basically be God-King again... Not very exciting, but it does satisfy our requirements for a Founder scaling with spread, and not in a self-limiting way.

New Enhancer "Sacred Geometry"
Keeps the GPP per turn effect removed from Symbolism

• Expending a Great Engineer grants 25 Science and Faith for every City following this Religion
• max 20 Cities
• +2 Gold and Culture from all World Wonders
• +5 Great Musician points in the Holy City.

So with this we have a mashup of

• TtGoG, but 5x more total yields and for 1 great person type
• Sacred Sites' Yields from World Wonders
• Symbolism's GPPs in the holy city, but instead of +2 of 8 types it's +5 of 1 type

Erm. This looks really thin. Extremely narrow use cases and not too exciting even then. GP expending bonuses can go off quite frequently when taken as a whole, but each individual GP type is only expended a few times per game. It will be a rare trigger, and might not be very fun.

 

[Legen]

Personally, I don't think every Founder needs to reward spreading. Some religions are very insular, such as Judaism and Shinto. I'd actually like to see more beliefs that don't revolve around spreading in order to be strong.

In game, I think non-spreading Founders can be of particular value for The Celts, who can't generate religious pressure to foreign cities.

 

[hokath]

The follower things already exists.

Although you will obviously convert your own cities to get majority religion, that doesnt convert all your citizens. So to get maximum value, you have to convert multiple times (especially as the Cities grow). Furthermore you have to remove foreign followers.
So it does function in the required way.

Sacred Geometry is niche wonder-whore option. The part I don't like about it is the lack of spreading/pressure mechanic. I might try to do something like "+x% pressure per world wonder in the city."

 

[pineappledan]

Personally, I don't think every Founder needs to reward spreading. Some religions are very insular, such as Judaism and Shinto. I'd actually like to see more beliefs that don't revolve around spreading in order to be strong.

My problem with our current selection of non-spreading founders if they are full power without having to do anything. All the spreader beliefs require investment. You need to pay faith into spreading for the founder to work.

I have designed 2 different ways that you could make a non-spreader that still requires you to pay faith into it:
- you could build the founder wonder on unlock and pay faith into order to strengthen it, and once it gets strong enough it lets you reform.
- the founder could give you access to a unique improvement that is built by a unit that costs as much as a missionary.

 

[hokath]

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