Balance — Religion and Faith

[Atlas627]

Would +1 per luxury be a good change or is that too powerful? Could probably tone it down to 1 for every two luxes if that's too good.

Doesn't it already give +1 culture, faith, and gold per unique luxury? Adding +1 happiness might be good and give it a niche, and if you think that's too powerful then just remove the +1 gold.

I think making it +2 culture, faith, and gold per unique is probably still not overpowered. Its per unique. That's worse than every other pantheon almost always. And then when you look at how its yields are also terrible right now...

 

[Funak]

Would +1 per luxury be a good change or is that too powerful? Could probably tone it down to 1 for every two luxes if that's too good.

Think the main issue here is how weak this pantheon is for actually getting you a religion. Yes I know, all pantheons doesn't necessarily have to be faith powerhouses, but those that aren't usually have some redeeming features like God-King's late-game scaling or God-of-all-creations's great early-game bonuses (along with it actually providing decent enough faith without any work).

Goddess of Festivals right now fills neither of those roles, if you're lucky you might connect three different luxuries and land a +3 culture/faith/gold per turn before all available religions are founded.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Some remarks

In short
I think God of All Creation need to be rebalanced, and that some other pantheons need a buff :
Goddess of Fertility, Goddess of Festivals, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Renewal, Goddess of Springtime, and maybe Goddess of the Hunt.
What do you think of it ?

In details

Ancestor Worship
+1 Faith for every 4 Citizens in a city; +1 Culture and +1 Faith from Councils.

Good. Produce a sufficient amount of faith to have a religion. Give some culture for early game, and a lot of faith for late game.

Earth Mother
+1 Faith and +1 Gold from Mines on improved resources, and +2 Production from Monuments.

Average. If you have some luck, it may be quite good, especially in early game. Nothing scale with eras so it become a little useless in late game.

God of Commerce
+1 Faith for every 20 Gold produced by owned cities; +2 Faith and +2 Science Gold in Cities with a City Connection.

Good. Probably better for AI than for players. The +2 science gold per cities is always cool.

God of Craftsmen
+1 Faith and +1 Gold from Quarries and Stone Works, and +2 Production in cities with a Specialist.

Average. If you have some luck, it may be quite good, especially in early game. Nothing scale with eras so it become a little useless in late game.

God of All Creation
+3 Faith in Capital; +1 Culture and +1 Happiness for every Pantheon ever founded (including this one).

Overpowered, or Good. Please change it to "+3 faith, +8(or 7) Culture, +8(or 7) Happiness", or at least to "every Pantheon ever founded (including this one) by known civilisation". Because on huge maps, its just too good. And if you don't exand a lot, the +3 faith is not so far to the amount of faith produced by others pantheons, so taking it does not really reduce your chances to have a religion.

God of the Expanse
+25% faster border growth, and gain 20 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Gamespeed.

Average. I don't like it, because it does not give any non-faith yields. But it is not so bad.

God of the Open Sky
+1 Culture for every 3 featureless Plains or Grassland tiles (without hills or features) worked by a City; +1 Faith and +1 Gold from Pastures.

Average. If you have some luck, it may be quite good, especially in early game. The culture for featurless Plain or Grassland may be difficult to have, but it can be quite good even in late game.

God of the Sea
+1 Faith and +1 Production from Fishing Boats and Atolls; +3 Food in coastal Cities.

Average. If you have some luck, it may be quite excellent, especially in early game. The main problem is that you need to reveal fish before knowing if this pantheon will be good or not.

God of the Stars and Sky
+2 Faith, +2 Production, and +2 Culture from Tundra tiles with improved resources.

Good. It can transform a bad start into a good one.

God of War
+50% increase in City Ranged Combat Strength, and gain Faith if you win a battle.

Good. It may be difficult to found a religion with, but if you manage to do so, it will give you a lot of faith.

God-King
+1 Culture, +1 Faith, +1 Gold, and +1 Science for every 6 Followers.

Good. Maybe overpowered. But I like the idea of "if you convert everybody to your religion, you almost won the game". And this pantheon do exactly that.

Goddess of Beauty
+3 Faith and +1 Culture from World Wonders. +15% Production of Pre-Renaissance Wonders.

Average. I don't like it. It's difficult to found a religion with it, especially at higther difficulry level. But at least, if you fail to build wonders, AIs will convert you to their religion and you will have a usefull pantheon instead.

Goddess of Fertility
+1 Food and +1 Faith from Shrines and Wells, and 15% faster Growth Rate.

Bad. Food is no longer a no-brainer. It does not gives a lot of faith, so its difficult to have a pantheon with it. Moreover, it boost Wells and not Water Mill. So either add Water Mill to the list of buildings, either boost the bonuses to make this pantheon be a "I have no cities next to rivers" pantheon.

Goddess of Festivals
+1 Faith, +1 Culture and +1 Gold for every unique Luxury Resource you control.

Bad. Usually, there is more than 6xLuxury Followers of your Pantheon, and God-King gives the same yields, plus science. And if you will have less than 6xLuxury Followers, there is other pantheons for you, for example God of All Creations... A proposition : +3 Faith, +1 Culture, +1 Gold, +1 Toursim for every unique Luxury Resource you control.

Goddess of Love
Gain 10 Faith and 10 Golden Age Points every time a Citizen is born. Bonus scales with Era and Gamespeed.

Bad. Or at least, it seems bad. I've never tested it, but I don't see when it would be good. Maybe add "10% food carried afte birth" ?

Goddess of Nature
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 2 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City, and Natural Wonders gain +3 Faith and +2 Culture.

Good. And even overpowered with some mapscripts.

Goddess of Protection
+10 HP healed per turn in friendly territory; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Palace, Walls and Barracks.

Good. Gives early culture. Now that the barracks give science, building it quickly in every cities is not stupid.

Goddess of Purity
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Oases, Lakes, and Marshes; +1 Happiness from Cities on rivers.

Average. If you have some luck, it may be quite good, especially in early game. The Happiness is always usefull in late game.

Goddess of Renewal
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 2 Jungle or 2 Forest tiles worked by a City; +1 Science and +1 Faith from Herbalists.

Bad. It was overpowered when it was "Every 3 jungle and forest within 3 tiles of a City". Before lambermills, you usually have better tiles to work than forest and jungles. Maybe : +1 Faith and +1 Culture for every Jungle or Forest without ressource (and +1 Science and +1 Faith from Herbalists).

Goddess of Springtime
+1 Faith and +1 Culture from Plantations, and +2 Gold from Markets.

Bad Both Plantations and markets came in late ancient era, and plantation on jungle need iron working to be done. So at least add +1 (or even +2) Faith to the Market.

Goddess of the Hunt
+1 Faith, +1 Food and +1 Culture from Camps.

Weak Not bad. I would not be against a +1 Gold to Camps, but it is not needed.

Goddess of Wisdom
+1 Faith for every 10 Science per turn. +1 Science and +1 Faith in every City.

Average Globaly weaker than God of Commerce, but it does not need a city connection, so not strictly weaker. Science per city is always cool.

Spirit of the Desert
+2 Faith, +2 Food and +2 Gold from Desert tiles with Improved resources.

Good. It can transform a bad start into a good one.

What do you think of it ?

 

[Funak]

First of all, you're completely wrong about God of Commerce, it does not provide science, it provides gold. Other than that the pantheon is still pretty good, especially with city-connections being weaker in the last version, early-game gold being harder to come by.

About the +yield to improvements (Earthmother/Springtime/Open Sky/Sea at least) I rate them all pretty much the same, they feel pretty weak, but I've picked them and translated them into religions plenty of times this patch. In short I don't think they are as bad as you make them out to be, but they aren't exactly amazing.
Craftsmen, Hunt and God of the Sun are different, I don't really know why but I'd place them a step above the others, maybe because their actual effects feel more impactful.

Goddess of Wisdom is kinda hard to make work, but I don't exactly see a good way to improve it, maybe letting it do 2faith1science/city, but that would make it strictly stronger than Commerce, which is not really the best idea.

I don't know how to tackle Renewal, I tried out multiple Iroquois starts recently to get a better grip of the civ, and the pantheon is so much worse now that it's making the entire civ feel weak (which is kinda weird when you think about it). On the other hand +1faith/culture on every forest/jungle tile would be insanely overpowered.

Goddess of Fertility is still really strong, the flat yields might be slightly worse but the growth% is still as good as ever. That being said, you need to strategically place your cities off rivers, which is weak to say the least letting it affect watermills as well would probably fix that, even if you're not going to get much use out of the effect since watermills unlock way later and cost a fortune.

Goddess of Love I was going to test at some point, but I never get around to it, it probably needs a faith-bump however.


As for God of all Creation, I can tell you from me mostly playing on small maps with 6 civs, it is fairly weak on those maps. I can see a clear scaling-issue with huge maps, even more so with people who like to add even more civs on top of a normal huge map.
Some pantheons are more map-dependent than others, that's only natural, but this one is something special.

 

[Atlas627]

I think that's a pretty good list, but I have a few disagreements:

1) Your proposed changes to God of All Creation are even more overpowered. +3 faith, +8 culture and happiness? +8, always?!

The scaling is supposed to be like that, and wouldn't be absurd if the civ didn't get to found a religion. In fact, because +3 faith is really strong as long as you grab it early, you can always grab this pantheon, which is way too good. Grab it early for many turns of +3 faith when the other panetheons wouldn't work yet, or grab it late for some turns of the full culture and happiness bonuses.

I say reduce it to +2 faith.

2) Goddess of Fertility has an additional bonus you may not notice: the yields apply to something you were already doing when going for a religion, building shrines. If you don't have time to do anything else, this is a boon.

Also, food is still always useful, because you can just work a different tile to convert it to something else. Would I choose working food over something else? No, but I would usually be happy to choose FREE food (per turn) over free something else.

That being said, Goddess of Fertility should really apply to Water Mills too.

3) God of the Sea is a little worse than the other improvement pantheons for 3 reasons: first, Fish get revealed late and way out of the way on the tech tree. Second, you have to manually build each Fishing Boat. Third, culture expansion to water tiles is usually pretty slow, so sometimes you have to buy the tiles.

Could bump it up to +2 faith, +1 hammer.

4) Goddess of Love is bad, but it occasionally works. When I look at it, I think "oh hey, grab this pantheon before I grow to get tons of GA points and not as much faith as another pantheon". Unfortunately, once I grow, I am inevitably in negative happiness and lose all those GA points I took the pantheon for.

GA points are the only yield you can lose without any benefit at all (even gold is saving you the science penalties for as long as you still have it). They should not be on a growth mechanic, especially because growing makes you more unhappy which means you lose the GA points.

How about +1 culture +1 faith per happiness in capital (like the culture policy), and +3 GA points per turn. Or any other way we can completely redo this panetheon.

5) Goddess of Renewal is definitely not bad. Are you building Herbalists? Are you settling IN the forest/jungle, or just sorta next to it? Are you making sure you're working pairs of tiles? Note that you can't mix and match the forest and jungle tiles for your pairs, which seems new and is weird to me.

6) Goddess of Springtime is slightly weak, and I agree it should be a buff to the Market part. +1 faith onto the Market seems solid, but maybe take 1 gold off as well?

7) Goddess of the Hunt seems almost completely outclassed by the Tundra pantheon to me. Any time I would consider Hunt, Tundra is everywhere. If Hunt is going to be weaker than Stars and Sky, making it the "I didn't get Stars and Sky and now need to catch up in the religion-founding race" version, should we bump it up to +2 faith at least?

 

[Funak]

3) God of the Sea is a little worse than the other improvement pantheons for 3 reasons: first, Fish get revealed late and way out of the way on the tech tree. Second, you have to manually build each Fishing Boat. Third, culture expansion to water tiles is usually pretty slow, so sometimes you have to buy the tiles.

Could bump it up to +2 faith, +1 hammer.

God of the Sea also affects Atolls, which are visible from the start of the game and doesn't require an improvement.

Also in my opinion God of the Sea feels more reliable than the other improvement pantheons, you can usually tell if you're going to have fish, and the other affected resources are luxuries (which are visible from the start)

7) Goddess of the Hunt seems almost completely outclassed by the Tundra pantheon to me. Any time I would consider Hunt, Tundra is everywhere. If Hunt is going to be weaker than Stars and Sky, making it the "I didn't get Stars and Sky and now need to catch up in the religion-founding race" version, should we bump it up to +2 faith at least?

From a personal standpoint I have picked up Goddess of the Hunt maybe 5 times so far in this version, I've yet to pick up Stars and Sky. Tundra is definitely not everywhere and usually not present at all in the situations where you want Hunt, namely if you get a truffle/fur/ivory start.

I can see where you're coming from. If you're in the tundra, most resources are camp-based, but just because of that does not mean all camp-starts are in the tundra.

 

[Atlas627]

God of the Sea also affects Atolls, which are visible from the start of the game and doesn't require an improvement.

Also in my opinion God of the Sea feels more reliable than the other improvement pantheons, you can usually tell if you're going to have fish, and the other affected resources are luxuries (which are visible from the start)

I have been unable to detect a pattern for when I will or won't have Fish before revealing it. How do you tell? That also still doesn't solve the other 2 problems.

From a personal standpoint I have picked up Goddess of the Hunt maybe 5 times so far in this version, I've yet to pick up Stars and Sky. Tundra is definitely not everywhere and usually not present at all in the situations where you want Hunt, namely if you get a truffle/fur/ivory start.

I can see where you're coming from. If you're in the tundra, most resources are camp-based, but just because of that does not mean all camp-starts are in the tundra.

I'm glad you have a different experience! That is why we bring these things up, after all. I literally always am in Tundra when I have enough Camp resources to consider Hunt. If that is not true for everyone, then its probably fine.

 

[Funak]

I have been unable to detect a pattern for when I will or won't have Fish before revealing it. How do you tell? That also still doesn't solve the other 2 problems.

Actually I have a pretty hard time explaining something like that, I can just tell from how the terrain looks and from what other resources haven't spawned. Either way if you suspect a fish-heavy start you can reach Fishing before you found your pantheon, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem.

As for the other problems you mentioned:
Fishingboats are cheap and build improvements instantly, you're also saving hammers from not having a building you need to rush in the cities (as the 3 food is not buildingtied)

For borderexpansion, it rarely goes where I want no matter what pantheon I pick so I usually end up throwing a small fortune into tile-purchasing.

I'm glad you have a different experience! That is why we bring these things up, after all. I literally always am in Tundra when I have enough Camp resources to consider Hunt. If that is not true for everyone, then its probably fine.

I feel like half my starts are Ivory-based, not that I'm really complaining Ivory is decent now at least compared to before the resource-rework.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

The camp discussion reminds of that game where I spawned next to both all elephants and all beavers. Then Threodora beat me to that pantheon by a few turns. It was before you could conquer religions.
Naturally, I ragequit.

Anyway, back on topic.

 

[Funak]

The camp discussion reminds of that game where I spawned next to both all elephants and all beavers. Then Threodora beat me to that pantheon by a few turns. It was before you could conquer religions.
Naturally, I ragequit.

Anyway, back on topic.

I hope you killed her before you ragequit, that's what I usually do.

 

[Taikavarpu]

I think removing faith from God of All Creation altogether might help. The pantheon would still be strong on the culture/happiness front, but founding a religion would be at least a little bit harder. Right now the pantheon is straight up broken, even on standard maps.

 

[Funak]

I think removing faith from God of All Creation altogether might help. The pantheon would still be strong on the culture/happiness front, but founding a religion would be at least a little bit harder. Right now the pantheon is straight up broken, even on standard maps.

No offense meant, but what are you smoking? God of all creation is already one of the absolute weakest faith-generating pantheons in the game. Unless you're India, one of the faith-civs or start next to a faith-based wonder you have absolutely no chance to found a religion with it. It is exactly in the same spot as God-King, with the notable exception of not being anywhere near as good of a lategame pantheon to motivate picking it.

That being said the culture and happiness gain is far too strong, especially on bigger maps. So strong that you don't need to found a religion, just having an extra 12+ culture/happiness from the start of the game is worth giving up a religion for. And for this point removing the base faith of the pantheon does absolutely nothing.


I would personally suggest just scrapping the whole thing, the mapsize scaling issue just isn't worth bothering with.

 

[Taikavarpu]

Unless you're India, one of the faith-civs or start next to a faith-based wonder you have absolutely no chance to found a religion with it.

Not true in the slightest. I always get a religion with it. Shrines and Stonehenge provide so much faith, it doesn't matter what your pantheon is.

Scrapping the whole thing is fine for me though. I don't really like the pantheon anyway.

 

[Funak]

Not true in the slightest. I always get a religion with it. Shrines and Stonehenge provide so much faith, it doesn't matter what your pantheon is.

Well, if you're playing on prince or whatever and can guarantee Stonehenge and proper expansion to get shrines up of course it doesn't matter, and at that point removing the faith from it wouldn't change anything either.

 

[Taikavarpu]

Well, if you're playing on prince or whatever and can guarantee Stonehenge and proper expansion to get shrines up of course it doesn't matter, and at that point removing the faith from it wouldn't change anything either.

I play on immortal, standard everything. And yes, I can guarantee Stonehenge. AI never builds it before turn 60 or something. Getting even one or two cities on top of that is enough.

I'm also not sure if removing faith from the pantheon would be enough, but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

 

[Funak]

I play on immortal, standard everything. And yes, I can guarantee Stonehenge. AI never builds it before turn 60 or something.

That is actually super-weird.

Well anyways, I still don't think removing the one thing that's consistent through mapsize from this balancing nightmare of a pantheon actually improves the situation.

 

[Gidoza]

That is actually super-weird.

Well anyways, I still don't think removing the one thing that's consistent through mapsize from this balancing nightmare of a pantheon actually improves the situation.

Allright, could someone summarize where we're at in terms of the balancing nightmare right now? I worked on this a while ago and I think it was a step forward, but I've dropped out of the loop and would like to get back in, but need to know what's going on first.

 

[Forsti]

Well, if you're playing on prince or whatever and can guarantee Stonehenge and proper expansion to get shrines up of course it doesn't matter, and at that point removing the faith from it wouldn't change anything either.

How do you manage to not get a religion with god of all creation? As long as you finish stonehenge before turn 45, you can be sure to get stonehenge on immortal. Often you don't even need to build it that soon, as AI doesn't necessarily get it even at turn 60. If you go for tradition, you can get +2 faith from shrine and second policy and +3 faith from all creation and stonehenge easily by turn 40. 10 faith/turn and 550 needed for religion (with stonehenge's instant 50 faith) means a religion in 55 turns after having all of that. Add to that shrines and possible natural wonders from other cities and you can easily have a religion before turn 90, basically guaranteeing it. With authority or progress you don't get the free +2 faith from the policy but you get the shrines up in your other cities faster.

If I hadn't made the active decision not to take god of all creation pretty much ever, I'd take it almost always. +8 culture is ridiculously strong, +8 happiness means you'll never need to worry about your empire being unhappy and +3 faith from the moment you get your pantheon means you'll probably get your religion faster than you'd get it with most of the other pantheons, since most other pantheons need an active investment in the form of improving tiles or getting buildings. For me it would take a special civ (Carthage, Iroquois) or a special start not to take god of all creation, if I hadn't softbanned it.

Something needs to be done about god of all creation. It scales badly with mapsize, it gives by far the best non-faith yields of all pantheons and it's also easy to get a religion with it.

 

[Funak]

Allright, could someone summarize where we're at in terms of the balancing nightmare right now? I worked on this a while ago and I think it was a step forward, but I've dropped out of the loop and would like to get back in, but need to know what's going on first.

The balancing nightmare was referring to God-of-all-Creation, varying in effect between 2/2 culture/happiness on a duel map and 26/26 culture/happiness on a 26 civ map with the celts in the game and Byzantium grabbing the same pantheon as someone who has already picked.

Yes these aren't exactly realistic numbers, but even cutting it down to 16/16 which I know people play, it's still a problem.

 

[Atlas627]

I play on Immortal and can always build Stonehenge without sacrificing anything. The AI never grabs it.

The fact that you can guarantee Stonehenge is what makes God of All Creation good, because you will keep the +8 culture +8 happiness into your religion. But so will everyone you spread to! Terrain-based pantheons are better to spread because your opponents don't get as much benefit.

Speaking of, yes you can research Fishing before founding a pantheon if you want to see if God of Sea is worthwhile. But researching Fishing is a huge cost! Its way out of the way and its the only base resource reveal on tier 2 techs. It doesnt unlock any buildings/wonders or techs!

Then you still have to spend production to get +1 hammer +1 faith. +3 food in the coastal city is actually sometimes sad because all you have are food tiles to work, so you can't convert the +3 food into something else.

The pantheon doesn't suck, but I think +1 hammer +2 faith would put it in a good spot.