Additional Papal Powers - Simple Suggestions

[iOnlySignIn]

I feel the Pope could be spiced-up a little bit. Not to the degree of a playable civilization, but simply by modifying existing features such as the St. Peter's Basilica wonder. Namely:

- St. Peter's Basilica should remove all Unhappiness from the city. And possibly provide points as well (and/or, place a pre-built Aqueduct in Rome). Because otherwise Rome is restricted to a pitifully and unrealistically small size.

- St. Peter's Basilica should also generate 6~9 Papal Bull resources. Papal Bull is a unique Happiness resource, and the Pope AI should be trading it to the most faithful Catholic civs in return for Health resources.

- In addition to building Catholic buildings and gifting money, the Pope should also be gifting Prosecutors to Catholic civs who have heretic religions in their cities. I feel this is a necessary feature because Prosecution as of now is a pretty self-destructive move, even for Spain.

 

[merijn_v1]

I agree with some points, but with some changes.

- No problem with the fact that the St. Peter removes unhappiness. But I'm not sure about the .

- I think 6-9 is too much. I think ~3 is better. You can only trade a resource once to each civ. That means that the Pope will trade away the resource to 5-8 civs. (not trading 5 resources to 1 civ) That means that allmost all catholic civs can get it. I think this resource should be something special and only available to a few civs. Not something every catholic civ is able to get.
Instead of Papal Bull, why not make it trading it relics? (Maybe not the most historical way, but I think it's gameplaywise quite good) There are too few relics in the game (only the first 2 of the list below). IMO, we should get more ways to get a relic.
Some suggestions:
-Control Jerusalem
-Build the Teutonic Knights corp
-Trade relics for another resource with the Pope
-Building certain wonders

- IIRC, the Pope prosecutes non state religion out of your cities by itself. So it doesn't have to give prosecutor units.

 

[ezzlar]

Nice suggestions. But I think he should have 3 relics instead. Problem is that good relations with the pope is too easy. Unless you are a heathen of course. He would give those away fast. Unless we code a high value?

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Agreed about 3 Relics. The Pope will keep 1 Relic for his own though, so effectively only 2 are trade-able.

What I aim to simulate with a unique trade-able Papal resources is how the Pope is able to endorse and legitimize secular rulers, such as the crowning of Charlemagne. The Pope should only trade these Relics/Bulls to the Catholic civ with the highest faith point. This way, French players will experience the crowning of Charlemagne personally.

I think we can represent it with Relic for now. But a more detailed Papal Bull can come later on - it can affect relations between different kingdoms, for example. When Charlemagne was crowned it gave the Franks a diplomatic advantage over the other Christian realms and peoples.


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I think the Pope's attitude needs an overhaul in general. It's alright for him to be highly hostile to civs with other state religions, but a +10 or more friendly relation with all Catholics is not very realistic or useful.

There are other ways to make the Pope more involved, such as Excommunication. Currently it's just too easy to refuse to participate in Crusades (a no-brainer for civs like Poland or England). To quote Bane, "Your punishment must be more severe." But I imagine such change will involve more effort than simply modifying the XML file of a single Wonder.

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IMO, we should get more ways to get a relic.

Indeed.

One way to get a Relic is simply a Random Event:

There should be a random event where you uncover a Relic in one of your cities. Available to Catholic, Orthodox, and Islamic civs only, and only when a civ is still relatively young. This is represented by:

- A Relic Resources spawns in one of your cities.

- A free Reliquary is built in that city.

- (Optional) The city receives 1~2 free Trade Routes.

- (Optional) Roads are automatically built around the city.

This idea is inspired by the Way of St. James.