Caveman 2 Cosmos

[Toffer90]

So you just want to make it so that now that you can only research one of the religions on Limited, you'd still get a prophet when you do? Fair nuff. You make a compelling case for that.

You can still invent more than one as long as you don't found a religion on "limited religion"+"divine prophets", the religious techs all turn red the moment you found your first religion in that setup.
I wasn't entirely clear earlier on that earlier.

So the typical exploit may be to invent shamanism and druidism before founding a religion as those techs are side by side, on higher difficulties it is likely that the AI get to them first though and you won't be able to invent them and get the prophets.

 

[Thunderbrd]

You can still invent more than one as long as you don't found a religion on "limited religion"+"divine prophets", the religious techs all turn red the moment you found your first religion in that setup.
I wasn't entirely clear earlier on that earlier.

So the typical exploit may be to invent shamanism and druidism before founding a religion as those techs are side by side, on higher difficulties it is likely that the AI get to them first though and you won't be able to invent them and get the prophets.

Well that would be why I didn't want to run it this way. I feel like if you're only going to ever get to use one prophet for a religion, you should be able to get that prophet the normal way since it's not cutting in much to the number of prophets you'd normally have to use on other things. If you don't found a religion on this dual setting, with the first religious tech and someone else founds the religion then out from under you, then you may yet be able to later found a religion out from under someone else. Maybe the best way to manage it is that once you've discovered a religious tech, you can't research another, you also don't, in THIS case of LR+DR only, ever lose the only right to ever found that religion...

 

[Toffer90]

Well that would be why I didn't want to run it this way. I feel like if you're only going to ever get to use one prophet for a religion, you should be able to get that prophet the normal way since it's not cutting in much to the number of prophets you'd normally have to use on other things. If you don't found a religion on this dual setting, with the first religious tech and someone else founds the religion then out from under you, then you may yet be able to later found a religion out from under someone else. Maybe the best way to manage it is that once you've discovered a religious tech, you can't research another, you also don't, in THIS case of LR+DR only, ever lose the only right to ever found that religion...

It's imo a worse quirk if religion techs does nothing or that no one gets a great prophet before after sedentary lifestyle (which is quite normal when playing without traits), then prehistoric religions won't get founded before ancient era.
The divine prophet option is pretty much a "get a free prophet from religion techs" option and that's almost it, so taking that away just because civs are limited to found only one religion seems strange. Consider how divine prophet without limited religion would feel if you didn't get free prophets there either...

 

[Thunderbrd]

It's imo a worse quirk if religion techs does nothing or that no one gets a great prophet before after sedentary lifestyle (which is quite normal when playing without traits), then prehistoric religions won't get founded before ancient era.
The divine prophet option is pretty much a "get a free prophet from religion techs" option and that's almost it, so taking that away just because civs are limited to found only one religion seems strange. Consider how divine prophet without limited religion would feel if you didn't get free prophets there either...

I've always been on the fence about that actually and have considered a sub-option that would enable that. To me, the option is about getting to say where you want your religion to be founded and we usually get way more prophets than needed even without the option. I wanted to find some ways later to make it more possible to get earlier GPs, including the greater potential for an early prophet as well. I decided that the current mod balance wouldn't yet allow DP to work without awarding the free prophet for the time being.

Anyhow, the main problem now is to find a solution that eliminates exploitability. If we award the prophet but make it impossible to lose the religion to any other civ and also ban any further researching of a religion and it should work out to address all concerns, no?

 

[Toffer90]

Anyhow, the main problem now is to find a solution that eliminates exploitability. If we award the prophet but make it impossible to lose the religion to any other civ and also ban any further researching of a religion and it should work out to address all concerns, no?

I don't play with divine prophets and probably never will, so I don't care that much about this.

It's a minor exploit, and getting one free prophet extra on low difficulties beats not getting a religion at all when inventing a religion in that setup.

I've always been on the fence about that actually and have considered a sub-option that would enable that. To me, the option is about getting to say where you want your religion to be founded and we usually get way more prophets than needed even without the option. I wanted to find some ways later to make it more possible to get earlier GPs, including the greater potential for an early prophet as well. I decided that the current mod balance wouldn't yet allow DP to work without awarding the free prophet for the time being.

If that's the point of the option then the player should get a pop up with a list of all its cities so the player may choose freely. Not get some great prophet as it is now.

The AI should just use the regular algorithm for deciding what city founds it, the algorithm used when not playing with divine prophets I mean.

The option could then be renamed to "Choose holy city".

 

[Thunderbrd]

If that's the point of the option then the player should get a pop up with a list of all its cities so the player may choose freely. Not get some great prophet as it is now.

The AI should just use the regular algorithm for deciding what city founds it, the algorithm used when not playing with divine prophets I mean.

The option could then be renamed to "Choose holy city"

Well the idea was that people don't research religions - they get founded by someone influential. That they are techs also is more to indicate a sense of the advancement of theory and how that opens up ripe timing for a particular worldview to be introduced. Part of the point is that it's to give prophets more to do in terms of options on how to use them. They're lackluster otherwise for the most part, particularly for a GP that becomes almost the only one you can birth if you can arrange your GP birth rates so you get enough to manage the needs for shrine building, though the Karma and Resurrection worldviews and such are kinda interesting somewhat.

That algorithm would be a very bad way to determine that for the AI because it tends to be designed to make the religion get founded in the worst possible location for a new religion not the best.

It's a minor exploit, and getting one free prophet extra on low difficulties beats not getting a religion at all when inventing a religion in that setup.

Read my proposal in that line again. I'm agreeing with that but I don't want you to be able to collect a bunch of extra prophets after you have one if you only get the option to found one religion ever. You're saying that you're currently only stopped from researching the next religion tech IF you haven't yet founded a religion. So you could just get prophet after prophet by simply not founding a religion and taking all the religious techs.

 

[Somebody613]

I definitely agree that I was utterly confused with "you get nothing from religion techs, if you use Limited Prophets".
That seriously makes no sense, no matter what.
Additionally, which is what you all somehow missed:
You do need TWO prophets to properly "settle your religion" - one to found the religion (and/or to found the holy city), another to build the holy city building.
So you SHOULD be getting a prophet from researching a religion - but it contextually should be the SECOND one.
Thus it'd be much more logical to somehow re-code everything so that:
1. You do receive a prophet from researching a religion. It then can do whatever your game options let you do with it, regardless of your religious research history.
2. That research DOES NOT make this religion "available" or "exclusive" or anything at all. There's no "who researched it FIRST" clause to begin with. Kinda should be a "national religion" in the same sense you have "national wonders". Everyone can research every religion and get its prophet as a reward.
3. You should be able to found ANY religion at ANY time (when you can at all). The opposite option should be called "historical religions", and be OFF by default. Strictly speaking, "historical religions" would only be logical on an actual Earth map, otherwise there's no sense in forcing their historical order onto an alien (or AU) planet.
4. Limited religions and Prophets should work like they do now. Specifically, LR would limit you to founding only one religion, and P would allow it to be done by using prophets. See next point.
5. There should be a separate "Choose Holy City" option that would allow you to literally do exactly that. But only if you don't use Prophets, obviously. This is basically to sensibly allow you to have a say where HC appears beyond the research-related semi-randomness. Prophets should also have a mission that allows them to relocate the HCs at any time regardless of conditions. Because why not, lol. Whether this should be limited to the official religion or to any present in the target city, is optional. This actually provides a funny tactic of STEALING HCs from other civs, lol, if their religion creeps into your city. And this isn't exactly ahistorical either, since similar stuff HAD happened in real life to some religions to a degree.

 

[Toffer90]

Additionally, which is what you all somehow missed:
You do need TWO prophets to properly "settle your religion" - one to found the religion (and/or to found the holy city), another to build the holy city building.

When playing without divine prophets you still need one prophet to get the holy city building.
When playing with divine prophets you need two prophets to get the holy city building.
2 - 1 = 1
The main rationale for getting the free prophet when playing with divine prophet is to allow you to found a religion shortly after you invent the religion so that it is similar to playing without divine prophets.
The secondary rationale is that since great prophets can be used for one more thing per religion in the game (founding the religion), you need to get as many more great prophets as you would have founded a religion without divine prophets somehow, thus it makes sense to give one for free to the one inventing the religion to make the amount of great prophets to be used for non religion founding causes virtually the same as when playing without divine prophets.

That algorithm would be a very bad way to determine that for the AI because it tends to be designed to make the religion get founded in the worst possible location for a new religion not the best.

The algorithm is designed to found the religion in your "best" city that is not your capital, I rather like the result of it every time I play, it is good design to not put it in the best city anyhow, to make it a bit unexpected and provide vulnerability, or a drawback in the boon it is to found a religion in this game.
Quotation marks on "best" as it is subjective and it doesn't consider all factors, only some important ones.
That algorithm is what has always determined where the holy city is for human player and AI alike when playing without divine prophets, and I'm sure the AI doesn't choose all that much better when having to found it with a great prophet, it is actually so bugged that the AI will only ever found their favourite religion with a great prophet, so if there's only AI that have late game favourite religions in the game then the player will even on nightmare difficulty get all the early religion holy cities. So I would say the regular algorithm is greatly superior to the great prophet found religion algorithm.

Everywhere where the human has a choice the AI use an algorithm to make the same type of choice, so giving the human player a list of cities to choose from and the AI an algorithm to make the same type of choice is not a bad solution for giving the player a way to choose the city (we could always make the algorithm not de-evaluate its capital when divine prophets is in use). Messing around with great prophets that lack proper AI for founding religions is the poor solution to giving the player a choice.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The algorithm is designed to found the religion in your "best" city that is not your capital, I rather like the result of it every time I play, it is good design to not put it in the best city anyhow, to make it a bit unexpected and provide vulnerability, or a drawback in the boon it is to found a religion in this game.

I was done with it after it kept placing it on island cities with no production. Far better to just make it your capital every time if you wanted to simplify it. That's basically what the prophets will do.

The main rationale for getting the free prophet when playing with divine prophet is to allow you to found a religion shortly after you invent the religion so that it is similar to playing without divine prophets.
The secondary rationale is that since great prophets can be used for one more thing per religion in the game (founding the religion), you need to get as many more great prophets as you would have founded a religion without divine prophets somehow, thus it makes sense to give one for free to the one inventing the religion to make the amount of great prophets to be used for non religion founding causes virtually the same as when playing without divine prophets.

Obviously. So when you are only allowed one religion to found, there's only one you need to offset. Getting more than that is, IMO, a player exploit manipulation of the option.

it is actually so bugged that the AI will only ever found their favourite religion with a great prophet

Not a bug but a design and it will only hold off for this on two conditions: 1) the favored religion is within an era away and 2) they only have this one prophet. If they get another, they dump both into the optional religion. If the favored religion is too far out, they won't bother to wait. (That is unless another programmer has tinkered with the code since I designed it.)

Everywhere where the human has a choice the AI use an algorithm to make the same type of choice, so giving the human player a list of cities to choose from and the AI an algorithm to make the same type of choice is not a bad solution for giving the player a way to choose the city (we could always make the algorithm not de-evaluate its capital when divine prophets is in use). Messing around with great prophets that lack proper AI for founding religions is the poor solution to giving the player a choice.

I've always intended to eventually have the AI label its highly specialized cities as such and once that's coded, then flavors on the religions can determine which specialized city they'd want to put the prophet in for that particular religion. Until then, all into the capital is the best result anyhow and pretty much what I find is the most valuable thing to do as a player as well.

 

[Toffer90]

Obviously. So when you are only allowed one religion to found, there's only one you need to offset. Getting more than that is, IMO, a player exploit manipulation of the option.

Yeah, but that rare and minor exploit is far preferable to players feeling totally cheated by not getting anything from inventing religions on the "divine prophet"+"limited religion" option combo. Any player would completely expect to get a free prophet because that's how "divine prophets" work when not having "limited religions". Limited religions is a difficulty increasing option, so who cares if it opens up a small exploit when combined with "Divine prophets".

I stand fully by my choice to allow the free prophet when inventing a religious tech on "divine prophets"+"limited religions".
It is much better than to not get any free prophet to offset the need for an extra prophet to found the religion.

On all other option combination, being the one who invent a religion tech gives something very good to the player who manage to do it, so why should it give nothing on this one specific option combo?
I mean, inventing a tech either gives a free prophet or a religion on any option combination, that is, except for "divine prophets"+"limited religion" where it gives absolutely nothing, nada, that's a bug in my book, and it was easy to fix.

 

[Somebody613]

Yeah, but that rare and minor exploit is far preferable to players feeling totally cheated by not getting anything from inventing religions on the "divine prophet"+"limited religion" option combo. Any player would completely expect to get a free prophet because that's how "divine prophets" work when not having "limited religions". Limited religions is a difficulty increasing option, so who cares if it opens up a small exploit when combined with "Divine prophets".

I stand fully by my choice to allow the free prophet when inventing a religious tech on "divine prophets"+"limited religions".
It is much better than to not get any free prophet to offset the need for an extra prophet to found the religion.

On all other option combination, being the one who invent a religion tech gives something very good to the player who manage to do it, so why should it give nothing on this one specific option combo?
I mean, inventing a tech either gives a free prophet or a religion on any option combination, that is, except for "divine prophets"+"limited religion" where it gives absolutely nothing, nada, that's a bug in my book, and it was easy to fix.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure I'm not the only player who is "fanatical" (lol) about always having (and even purging any excess) just ONE religion in my civ.
And then there's the Religious Victory to begin with - where you NEED to keep it to just ONE religion, and thus you want as little nuisance to come from all the others.
So for RelVic (or similar personal playing styles) you'd clearly go for DivPro + LimRel.
Which means it's NOT FAIR to have it actually HINDER your game play for choosing options that are OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE and USEFUL for an OFFICIAL VICTORY.
Conclusion: We should 101% GET a prophet from researching a religion - never mind the exploit. AND you should just make religions "national", like I said before.

 

[Toffer90]

3. You should be able to found ANY religion at ANY time (when you can at all).

There's already an option for that, I think it's called "Choose Religion".
It is not recommended though as each religion is designed and balanced with a specific time period of the game in mind.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah, but that rare and minor exploit is far preferable to players feeling totally cheated by not getting anything from inventing religions on the "divine prophet"+"limited religion" option combo

Which is why I'm saying to keep the free prophet... just make it so nobody else can ever use a prophet to get the one religion you were allowed to research as well IF on this combination of options. You can delay the founding of the religion to work with another prophet later but it doesn't open up for others to steal the religion of the tech you researched as it normally does without Limited Religions.
Just also make it so you can't research a second religion as well so you can't get extra prophets out of the deal.

We're mostly in agreement, I'm just seeing a way to patch the loophole here.

 

[Toffer90]

We're mostly in agreement, I'm just seeing a way to patch the loophole here.

Ok, when you said "keep it as it is" I thought you were against allowing religious techs to award a free prophet on "divine prophets"+"limited religions" when invented.

Closing that loophole is more work than it was to just remove "&& !isGameOption(GAMEOPTION_LIMITED_RELIGION)" from one "if" check which was a decent bug fix imo even though it adds this loophole.
I don't care much for the "divine prophet" option, so I won't prioritize resolving a quirk that it may have for some players on lower difficulties.
I'm mostly of the opinion that if you are the first to invent a religion tech with the "divine prophets" GO, then you've earned a free prophet, and that that's part of what that option do. You may loose out on being the first to reach sedentary lifestyle because you prioritized inventing an extra religion on the way.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Ok, when you said "keep it as it is" I thought you were against allowing religious techs to award a free prophet on "divine prophets"+"limited religions" when invented.

Closing that loophole is more work than it was to just remove "&& !isGameOption(GAMEOPTION_LIMITED_RELIGION)" from one "if" check which was a decent bug fix imo even though it adds this loophole.
I don't care much for the "divine prophet" option, so I won't prioritize resolving a quirk that it may have for some players on lower difficulties.
I'm mostly of the opinion that if you are the first to invent a religion tech with the "divine prophets" GO, then you've earned a free prophet, and that that's part of what that option do. You may loose out on being the first to reach sedentary lifestyle because you prioritized inventing an extra religion on the way.

I meant as is as how you have it now. As IS. lol. Though eventually we should fix the loophole we've discussed. My problem is I care so little about Limited Religions to want to mess with it right yet. Maybe I can remember to put a to do item on github on the matter.

 

[Toffer90]

I meant as is as how you have it now. As IS. lol.

Pretty sure you said it before I committed the change to github master, the change that allows you to get a free prophet for inventing religious techs on the discussed option combo. ^^
That you were referring to what I said here:
"I guess I can remove that 'free prophet with divine prophet option' limitation from limited religion option. That was a mouthful. lol"

Though eventually we should fix the loophole we've discussed. My problem is I care so little about Limited Religions to want to mess with it right yet.

I hear ya, I care so little about "divine prophets" that I don't want to mess with it either.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I hear ya, I care so little about "divine prophets" that I don't want to mess with it either.

I'll try not to be offended

 

[rwglaub]

How do I stop units getting automatic promotions when I build them? I prefer to do it myself/

 

[irishhombre]

How do I stop units getting automatic promotions when I build them? I prefer to do it myself/

Go into bug options and disable automatic promotion.

 

[rwglaub]

Thanks!

I can't click on any units, especially when they are outside cities. What did I do wrong? Just started a new and cannot click on a stonethrower exploring.