Change of the missionary mechanics

[bbbt]

Same here. Basically, the Religion Game has become a complete non-game to me: Piety, pick Relics from enemy capitals, build 1 - 2 Temples, build 3 - 4 Missionaries, convert enough capitals to get enough Relics, End. The Religion/Relic part of the game is generally over well before Turn 50 of Exploration Age, and everything else about the religion game is Nice To Have (potential extra Gold, Culture, etc) but absolutely not necessary.

100% I got the exploration era happiness crisis (which is religion based) in my most recent game. I thought, oh cool, this can revive some interest with religion - convert my cities back and protect them so I don't lose happiness, convert opponent cities to make them more unhappy. After about 10 turns of that with zero actual effects on anything, I just stopped and end-turned my way to the end of the era.

 

[Taefin]

For religion, I like the beliefs that give yields based on terrain. You can get good yields focusing only on HL, and there are fewer settlements to worry about playing wack-a-mole over. It’s not inspiring by any means, but it’s not super tedious either.

 

[MACKA0ili]

From reading through the thread it looks like the main complaints about missionaries and the way religion is implemented are

• Tedium/micro management in handling missionaries
• Benefits not obvious unless invested in heavily and then maintained heavily
• Not enough reason to pursue it outside of legacy path progression

So what would be a satisfying change would be to make a more lasting and impactful way of handling the spreading of religion. I'm not sure if are going to make drastic changes before the first expansion, but I think there are ways to work within the mechanics of the current system.

One Idea I've been playing around with in my head is making Missionaries more similar to Traders in that they spawn a Pilgrim unit that moves autonomously towards your cities with temples or relics that generates culture and influence per turn like a Trade Route. Relics would supercharge these yields and could also be gained by having enough pilgrimage to a city or by plundering enough of your opponent's pilgrims. These increased influence yields could then be invested into your empire through endeavors or sanctions that can help or hinder these pilgrimages. I still need to flesh out the idea, but the main point is that religion and spreading the faith acts as a way to connect your empire with it spreading naturally across settlement connections but also allowing you to establish those connections manually on and with much less constrictions than the current settlement connection system.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

For religion, I like the beliefs that give yields based on terrain. You can get good yields focusing only on HL, and there are fewer settlements to worry about playing wack-a-mole over. It’s not inspiring by any means, but it’s not super tedious either

The problem is that many of the 'terrain requirements' are map-situational: gotta have Wonders, Natural Wonders, coastal ositions, et al, and enough of them to reach the total of 12. I have seen Standard Map/Continental situations already where in the middle of Exploration there weren't three settlements on the entire Homeland with Natural Wonders in or near their boundaries (obviously, without Isabella in the game!)

But everybody has to have a Capital, and the converting capital Belief gives you 2 relics per capital converted. Convert the other 4 Homeland Civs on a Standard-sized Map, and a single Missionary sent to Distant Lands can give you the complete Legacy path. It's as close to a no-brainer as you can get, IMHO, and makes the entire 'religion game' also brainless and desperately needing reworking.

 

[Leucarum]

It's as close to a no-brainer as you can get, IMHO, and makes the entire 'religion game' also brainless and desperately needing reworking.

I'd extend that proble, to the modern culture legacy path. Antiquity is great, but after that it feels as if the culture paths have a bunch of balance issues while being the heaviest micromanagement, and most inevitable in the game.