Design: Religions

Order-Maybe for law they get +2 units allowed to be drafted per turn, and the otehrs give +5% military production (stacks).

Runes-I like those ideas.

Fellowship-Kinda generic, but nice. Maybe if they have nature then all units start with woodsman I.

OO-I love the asylum bonus. Maybe water gives ships +2 xp as well?

AV-Boring. I don't have time now, but i'll think of some more in the morning. Maybe allowing sages?

 

I agree with all three of you, and I think Loki nailed it. We will take out the xp benifits. What about doing away with the secondary benifits and just doing something on the pirmary sphere? Remember though that the primary sphere is handed out with the holy city upgrade (Stigmata of the Unborn/The Necronomicon/etc) so civs will automatically get it if they use a great prophet for the upgrade and hold the holy city.

 

My yield-bonus-idea was motivated by the idea, that the AIs priorities (that are set by leader specific weights) would be modified a bit in the direction of the respective religion.

But this could also be archived by adding small weights based on the religion? If you want I'll look into that matter next after my Promotion-Project.

Nevertheless i think we should give small bonuses for the secondary manas to encourage their use.

 

Yeah because each civ will also have their starting mana. This encourages the Elohim to be an order civ.

 

I think there should definately be some AI biases thrown in on top of any bonuses we give. So that it'll be rare to see an AI Elohim civ be Veil, for instance. There should be some predictability that allows people to make strategies. For example, in a vanilla game, if your neighbor is Monty, you prepare for war. If you are surrounded by evil civs, a viable strategy then becomes rushing for Veil, because you know that your neighbors will be happy to convert, and loath to convert away.

 

Hmm good idea and something not involving special FfH code to code... i think ill try my hand on this if our Lead Designer likes it.

 

I prefer the title Mr MonkeyPants.

I think the idea is great, I think it should be linked to the leaders personalities so that a random personalities will mix up who wants what. I added alignment to the mod along with getAlignment() and setAlignment() functions and weighting the religions on alignment seems appropriate. Especially since that will swing their chances as the religion changes.

Im not to worried about civs founding the wrong religion. I can block ai civs from researching opposed religion granting techs if no one has discovered them yet. Im also not to worried about them being converted through diplomacy because they will be dealing with such significant modifiers it will be as hard as it should be to switch a leaders alignment.

So the only situation that I think we could use a change is a civs tendancy to switch to a religion that has spread into their lands. Chalid, if you would like to swing at it that would be awesome, ill the full ffh source this weekend so you can have all the changes and the alignment functions.

 

So for the two dragon religions:
Gold-Shining Savior
Black-???

Start techs (also automatically give baby dragon)
Holy Creation
Holy Summoning (the black dragon was a summoning that became a religion)

Perhaps the kuriotates can never convert to the sheaim religion and vice versa.

If the dragon is killed then the holy city is destroyed and all disciple units of his are killed. The religion is not removed from cities but no longer spreads (and the spreading units can't be built)

 

Black - Destroyer of Worlds(fits well with the ambition of the Sheaim)

I'm not sure if they should start with the dragons and the religons. Building the dragon, and focusing on the dragon religion, should still be a choice the player can make. It would most likely be the best chocie to get the most out of your civilization, but I don't think he should be forced into the Dragon Cult playstyle if he doesn't want to. Perhaps the technologies could be placed a bit after Polytheism, so you could still grab them, and the dragon, reasonably early.
I don't think it should be restricted for the Kuriotates to become Black Dragon Cultists, in fact it could well be imagined that they would be compelled to do so after the death of their own dragon. Perhaps restricted while the dragon exists? And then also from picking any other religions as state religions? Perhaps the dragon leaves you if you do, and so will essentially be a religious hero.
I think the two religions should be mutually exclusive in the same city, like the Veil and the Order.

I like the idea of the dragon growing with the religion spread(it should obviously be scaled after map size in some way). It would also be possible to make it the other way around, so the religion grew in spread rate and bonuses as the dragon grew(for example, the possibility of Temple Upgrades would come at a late growth stage). But then there would still be the issue of growth. Perhaps the Gold dragon will grow through projects(requiring a good production base, which the Kuriotates will be likely to have), while the Black would instead grow by defeating enemies in combat, reaching a certain lvl of xp to grow? Barbarians shouldn't count. This would force the Black Dragon Cultists to play quite agressively, but on the flip side they'd be able to grow their dragon earlier than the Kuriotates through diligent use of the young dragon in battle.

 

Right now Im thinking about making the dragon cult a non-traditional religion. It would spread to cities like a normal religion but you couldn't set it as a state religion. Likewise it doesn't have priests and disciples, it may allow a few special units, but isnt on the same power level as the current religions. Its a "minor religion".

Instead it has some effects on the cities it spread too. Some good, some bad. There wouldn't be any missionaries so it would be spread by chance only. So it would become a religion largely beyond the players control. Some rogue influence in the empire.

The Kuriotate and the Sheaim would be the only ones who could truely benifit from the cults spread. They would be the only ones who could discover the religion and would therefor have the holy city. At this point Im thinking of having only 1 cult that worships all dragons (good or evil).

The reason i want 1 cult is that it is simpliar and easier to add. I also dont want to steal any of the flavor from the opposed order and veil religions by reusing the mechanic. Besides its entirely possible that the kuriotate could become evil and the sheaim good in a game, and if so the making of an "evil" and "good" cult wouldn't match.

But I need mechanics and ideas. I would like them to be a "cult" instead of a religion. A small group of fanatics. A few ideas:

1. Cities with a dragon cult in them are -25% city defense against dragons.

2. Kuriotate and Sheaim only wonder that increases the spread rate of the cult.

3. The Kuriotate can build a special unit in cities with the dragon cult, the Sheaim can build a different special unit. (Other civs don't have any access to the cults special units).

4. The cult preceeds the dragon.

5. When either of the 2 dragons i made every non-sheaim/non-kuriotate city with the dragon cult in it has a chance of flipping to the dragons civ equal to the percent of its population that is following the dragon cult.

6. If the holy city is destroyed the cult is removed form the game.

7. Need more mechanic ideas.

 

Cults as a form of minor religions are interesting, might be useful in other cases than this one.

1. Makes sense.
2. Good idea. I'm wondering a bit about the spread, though. Will it be able to spread to cities with actual religions already in them, or do cities have to be "empty"? If not the religion should come quite early, so you don't already have fellowship or runes in all your cities by the time you get it.
How about giving a chance to spread the cult to any city conquered by either of the dragons?
3. Good. Can other civs still build Temples? I think they should be able to benefit at least a little from the cult, even if they don't get all the special stuff. Though, considering mechanic 5, it might be a very good idea to start mobilizing the Inquisition at the smallest sign of cult presence in either case.
4. Perhaps the tech it is tied to could be called "Prophecies of the Dragon" or something like that, to make it fit lore-wise. Awaiting the dragon, like other religions await a messiah. A later tech could then allow the dragon to be built.
5. Pretty cool mechanic, could be really powerful if used right. Would probably make a lot of human players very hesitant in regards to early Open Border deals with the Kuriotates or Sheaim.
6. Will the dragons leave too? What if the dragons are destroyed, will the cult still persist, awaiting a "Second Coming"?(perhaps there could be a possible, difficult and complicated, questline for that if a dragon died)

7. a) If there is only one cult, how will the relationship between Kuriotates and Sheaim be? I assume they'd still be mostly affected by respective alignments, as cults aren't state religions. But perhaps there should be some unifying aspects between the two civs as well, because both has a fascination of dragons.
b) I think I mentioned this before, but perhaps the presence of a dragon in a city with the dragon cult could grant a certain bonus, perhaps giving a smaller version of the God King-effect in that city/boost culture/increase defense bonus.
c) There is a literal ton of quest-potential in dragons, but that should probably be saved for later.

 

I may adjust the chance so that if the religion is a cult it is unaffected by other religions existance in the city as part of the spread chance. I would also adjust it so that real religions arent effected by cults.

And I agree that the cult will have to far proceed the dragon.

I would rather havign the cult spread into a city truely was a bad thing for a city. That way the mechanic becomes a strength of the kuriotate/sheaim civs and something they can work on without war (im always looking for fun activities for the players besides declaring war).

I had said that I wouldnt want missionary units for the cult, but in retrospect I think they may be nessesary for the kurio/sheaim. But their spread rate would be lower than for the other religions.

Sounds good.

I wouldn't destroy the dragons. Im expecting that destorying the holy city would usually proceed the dragons coming. So the cult is founded and starts to spread. Players can either try to chase the religion out of their cities (which is hard to do until the late game) or put an end to it once and for all by destroying the holy city. It will give human players a nice goal to pursue before the holy city holder finishes his dragon.

Keep in mind that in most games (which have randomly generated opponets) both civs won't exist in the same game.

From a practical aspect they both want ownership of the holy city, so there will be some conflict. I think through this as the play of a single player game. If he is playing the kuriotates and he is beaten to the cult holy city (which could come as a surprise as he may not even know the sheaim are in the game) he would definitly want to go take the city.

Yeah, I could definitly see a dragon in a city that has the dragon cult giving a considerable boost to culture and a moderate productivity boost.

 

Not that we cannot tell the AI to try the same if the Human gets the holy city...

BtW: We might want to change the religionspread functions, so that order cannot spread in veil cities and the other way (no longer that stupid has been removed..) and maybe we would like to add that a second religion can randomly spread into a city with a religion present. i checked it and for now only one religion will spread randomly. all others need missionarys (CvCity.cpp line ~9636)

Im working (design phase) on the AI values for the religions right now. What do you think. I would like to greatly reduce the chance that a civilization will switch away from their states religion. Furthermore i would like to reduce the chance of a civ to go into free religion (especially dependend on heros).

 

I think its a good idea. I would like a prefered religion for the leaders, with the ability to set none (most civs would be none) and let the civ develop however. So if you make it I will definitly include it. Do keep in mind that we shouldnt spend to much time ai tuning at this point, since we are still changing significant elements of the game and should focus on things that directly impact the player. These ideas are good and arent at risk to become "obsolete" with later changes, but its just soemthing to consider.

Right now im really interested in interface and player options. They seem to have more bang for the buck. For example I really like your idea to consolidate the promotions, which I think all players will appreciate. Im working on a cannotPromote block that will make units unable to learn spheres that dont offer spells. Players will scream if they waste an upgrade on a sphere that doesn't gain them anything and it will be a pain for them to check the pedia every time. This will also keep the AI from wasting upgrades on worthless spheres.

 

Just some more sentences offtopic: I am best in things that make fun for me and i hate it when an AI makes obvious wrong descition. Thats why i really like the AI coding. Finally this is the first Civ that allows me to improve my enemies. And I feel a good AI as enemy makes the game much more fun, especially when adding a lot of features, as an added feature is often much more impressive, when the AI uses it against you than the other way round.
Its the oh f**k how did he do that. I want that, too, effect.

So i have a lot of plans for the AI in my head that will be coming out (and hopefully into FfH the next weeks). For example one thing will be teaching the AI to build the unit-prerequisite buildings in an effective way. I had often cripple an AI itself as they built hunter after hunter instead of Macemen as they had not built an barracks (due to continous war). Another thing is that i would really like to do is build an effective AI for the Mages and to teach the AI to play a bit more for Victory. All those changes will not become obsolete with the advancement of FfH and most of them will be reusable for other mods as well so i think the investet time will not be wasted.

 

Thats cool. When possible look for global solutions instead of specific ones and as little change as possible in the SDK. For example, rather than code that directs the AI when to build bilds I would prefer a dynamic AIWeight function that kicks out to a python function. If it hands the python function the city and the building it is considering we sould be able to use Python to make all of the determinations and pass back a more intellegent weight.

That should have a pretty minor dll footprint and allow us to tweak and ai balance to our hearts content without touching the dll (after the start).

I would go so far as to say that if a dynamic aiweight python routine was built into weightbuild, weighttrain, weightpromote and weightimprove (with cannotimprove and cannotpromote checks) I think you could release that alone as a modpack that a ton of modders would just love to have. And turn ai tweaking into a python function instead of an sdk function.

 

Im just thinking about AI changing religions.

It bases his descition on a number of points that is determined by number of cities, holy cities (and soon will inlcude heroes as well)
I would multiply this by an weightingfactor (100+Leaderhead weight Religion)
but that alone doen not prohibit that bannor converst to veil if the first city is infected with veil.

So i would add a second value that is added to the total number of ponts (or subtracted if negative) do -4 for example would mean that the Ai will convert only if there are at least 5 cities infected with the religion. Would you prefer to set two values per Ai or only one and calculate the second parameter from the first.

Eg for calculation of the second parameter: bannor (+60 Order -40 Veil) would mean that order counts as if it would have 6 cities more, and the final result would be multiplied by 1.6 whereas Veil would count 4 cities less and the result would be modified by 0.6.

Is that ok for you? Than i'll add it this evening. And submit the show promotions and this change.

 

Ideally we would have a modifier based on the prefered religion, and a calculated modifier based on the alignment on the civ. We could hardcode this but the best way to do it is probably to add an alignment attribute to religions as we do for leaders, then compare those attributes.

So a civ would be -20 to a 1 step change (good to neutral) and -40 for a 2 step change (good to evil) in alignments.

 

Does alignment change excerpt when changing the religion (and does it when we change religion?)?

If not the AI values should make sure that the right choice for the next religion is made. If we added AI values and alignment values its kind of done double excerpt if you want a civ that was good at the beginning and then changed to veil be more probably to change to overlords afterwards than to change back to the good side for example to order.

Edit: ok found it. alignment changes with religion at last. if we add an alignment attribute to the religions (maybe -2 to 2) we could get rid of the hardcode for alignment changes on religion change, so i will add it.

Edit2: Maybe we even want to go away from the hardcoding of the spread events to and simply disallowing one religen with (-2/+2) Alignment to spread when there is a religion of (+2/-2) alignment present. That would allow to simply introduce further absolute evil and absolute good religions that are mutally exculsive.

 

I was going to remove the hardcode for religions anyway as soon as I can expose the getAlignment and setAlignment functions to python. Then I will just have the alignment change at the begining of the turn, at the same time when your cities all switch to the religion graphics.

Im still trying to grasp exposing functions to python but Im hoping that with the help Talchas gave I'll be able to do it tonight.