Dharma - Needs a Redesign

[GlobalTree]

I know for all the problems to fix in civ 6,Civ balance is a later priority.

But this post https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/devs-play-as-india.626595/page-7#post-14982831
And recent governor reveal made me realize how bad this ability is.

Dharma is probably the most UN-synergetic civ ability ever in any civilization games,its so bad probably the worst in civ 6.
So its pretty hard to get benefits from this since you have to be limited to passive spread(we all know how reliable that works) and ai to spread it you,not only that its against your goal for Religious victory.

What you get for all that..??, mediocre bonuses with 2 at best considering your civ will have 3 religions on average in your city in sp not even mp,and The follower beliefs require you to invest in faith building to get benefits out.
This ability feels a disadvantage at times if you pursue,i have seen streamers completely ignore it for good reasons.

so why post now..?? well the new faith governor moksha makes it worse.

Citadel of god and Patron saint in particular makes matter worse.
Solution:-
First of all dharma doesn't have to be faith based,Dharma means one's dedication/duty to one's work so it could be interrupted in anyway.
So i will change this ability to for every religion in your city you get 5% to city yields (with max 5).
Realistically in sp you will get 3 on average,not so much multiplayer ability due to how religion plays out in mp in general .
So i would like you guys thought or suggestion on this..?
sorry for the english errors
little offtopic : please firaxis if you are reading this,please improve unique tile improvements also and let varu upgrade to cavalry instead of waiting for tanks so late upgrade

 

[ShallowSeas]

So i will change this ability to for every religion in your city you get 5% to city yields (with max 5).

I have to say I like this idea, it is interesting and unique (I'm pretty sure no other civ gets percentage based bonuses to yields) and I agree that Dharma is a bit silly currently, getting useful bonuses seems too dependent on chance.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

This ability feels a disadvantage at times if you pursue,i have seen streamers completely ignore it for good reasons.

Were these streamers playing before or after the last patch made it so trade routes spread religion?

I've found it very easy to take advantage of Dharma ever since that change was made. You don't need to rely on your opponents to spread their religion to your cities because you can go get it yourself. You don't even need to commit the trader unit for a long time, because even just one trade route is usually enough to get you one convert in the origin city, and that's all you need to make Dharma work.

 

[GlobalTree]

Were these streamers playing before or after the last patch made it so trade routes spread religion?

I've found it very easy to take advantage of Dharma ever since that change was made. You don't need to rely on your opponents to spread their religion to your cities because you can go get it yourself. You don't even need to commit the trader unit for a long time, because even just one trade route is usually enough to get you one convert in the origin city, and that's all you need to make Dharma work.

yeah,but if you got to war and bar can also pillage your trade routes,even then all the other points i mentioned and upcoming changes still make the ua the worst imo,not to mention the multiplayer scene too in addition to sp
After seeing the new faith governor it really pushed me to think this ability needs a redesign,rest of the civ ua ability could jut get more numerical buffs/nerfs but this one needs a redesign really,unless they make follower beliefs really really powerful i think.
but yeah thanks to that change you could somehow get this reliably as oppose launch,cheers

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't see the problem here. You could ignore the Citadel of God ability at all.

The whole Dharma thing is about restraining your religion spread, including skipping abilities like this.

 

[NegativeZero]

I've found it very easy to take advantage of Dharma ever since that change was made. You don't need to rely on your opponents to spread their religion to your cities because you can go get it yourself. You don't even need to commit the trader unit for a long time, because even just one trade route is usually enough to get you one convert in the origin city, and that's all you need to make Dharma work.

Religious pressure on trade routes has made Dharma more consistent for players which gets better once religious AIs/players unlock Moksha. That +100% pressure will certainly help you catch their religion.

Dharma is good if your not playing a religious game as you'll get empire wide bonuses without the investment. It may take some finesse to keep from being dominated by 1 religion, but that is the catch.

 

[GlobalTree]

Religious pressure on trade routes has made Dharma more consistent for players which gets better once religious AIs/players unlock Moksha. That +100% pressure will certainly help you catch their religion.

Dharma is good if your not playing a religious game as you'll get empire wide bonuses without the investment. It may take some finesse to keep from being dominated by 1 religion, but that is the catch.

I don't see the problem here. You could ignore the Citadel of God ability at all.

The whole Dharma thing is about restraining your religion spread, including skipping abilities like this.

Well that's the whole point of the post,its anti-religious victory,to get benefit of follower beliefs you have to INVEST in religion and even then they are mediocre at best compared to other what some other civ ua get and not to mention the hassle to get it,hope you understand the point

edit : here as you can see http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6) except for worth ethic all are fatih based,
Most other civs ua ability are easier to use and provide much better bonus

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well that's the whole point of the post,its anti-religious victory,to get benefit of follower beliefs you have to INVEST in religion and even then they are mediocre at best compared to other what some other civ ua get and not to mention the hassle to get it,hope you understand the point

edit : here as you can see http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6) except for worth ethic all are fatih based,
Most other civs ua ability are easier to use and provide much better bonus

Yes, it's hard to use ability. And that's it's whole point. Civilization diversity is good. Ability, requiring additional strategy are great.

And overall civ balance is not based on 1 ability only. Both Indian leaders have strong abilities (neither of them conflicts with Dharma usage), the UU is very strong (and could be used for long time), the unique improvement is great too.

 

[NegativeZero]

Well that's the whole point of the post,its anti-religious victory,to get benefit of follower beliefs you have to INVEST in religion and even then they are mediocre at best compared to other what some other civ ua get and not to mention the hassle to get it,hope you understand the point

edit : here as you can see http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6) except for worth ethic all are fatih based,

Thanks for keeping me straight, I didn't realize the follower beliefs had mostly shrine/temple conditions.

Even with most of the follower beliefs requiring shrines/temple to get benefit from Dharma, a war focused approach with varu would just take them.

However if your religion is competing with another religion (thus you'd have shrine/temples anyways), you would have the edge from Dharma for religious victory.

Cities only need a majority of the population to be your religion, why would you care too much about that 1 follower of the other religion if Dharma compensates you for him.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's totally possible to play religious game without targeting religious victory or even without founding a religion. You could still by units, buildings, naturalists and great people with faith.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Well that's the whole point of the post,its anti-religious victory,to get benefit of follower beliefs you have to INVEST in religion and even then they are mediocre at best compared to other what some other civ ua get and not to mention the hassle to get it,hope you understand the point

edit : here as you can see http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6) except for worth ethic all are fatih based,
Most other civs ua ability are easier to use and provide much better bonus

You have to invest in faith, but not necessarily in religion. Two of the follower beliefs, Jesuit education and warrior monks, give you ways to spend faith outside of buying religious units. The new minister's chapel building that can be built in the government plaza district also gives you an alternate way to spend faith. The city-state of Valletta lets you spend faith on city center and encampment buildings. And of course, you can spend faith on great people, naturalists, and worship buildings under any circumstances.

So you see, faith can be a useful resource even if you don't plan to buy a single missionary. So building holy sites and their related buildings isn't just for players who are pursuing religious victory. All yields can be useful for all victory types if utilized properly.

 

[Stilgar08]

Maybe I don't get what this is really about (not an english mothertongue here), but Citadel of God or Patron Saint are not a problem, since you

a) don't have to take the promotions
b) even if, it only works in the city you place the governor in

Dharma isn't the greatest thing on earth, but it's not THAT aweful... I wouldn't mind a rebuff and like your idea. But I wouldn't be disappointed the other way around...

 

[sonicmyst]

I think some people find Dharma underwhelming is because of its unpredictability or being situational.

 

[Cerilis]

couldnt you deliberately leave one of your small remote cities with a holy site to another religion, so you can always spread a bit of that to your other cities?

 

[Duuk]

I'm still kind of terrible at the game, but faith is one of my key resources. The ability to rush-buy great people (and depending on the game I'm playing, units and/or buildings) is huge.

 

[GlobalTree]

yup,agreed, it has its benefits in some situations other you can just take advantage of it and not for religious victory route(although i could spend those resources on military or economic buildings ),no argument there..here's the thing regarding ua
its High effort vs low reward ability
compared to medium effort vs medium reward ua of other similar tier factions like china,egypt,spain
and the you have no effort very high reward unique ability of op civs like macedon and Australia
and there are strong civs with all ua,ub/ui,uu,ul like macedon,Australia..etc even strong balanced civs like cyrus and trajan,so its no excuse to keep it weak,anyways both stepwell and varu are not even in top 5 at best going by the some topics regarding here
Even then my point is not much about balance
more about it doesn't synergize's with rest of faction ui and ul as compared to rest of civs,nor the religious victory condition
not that it i is or isn't useful(it is useful in some situation).
It's fine if civ balance doesn't happen,other fixes still are more priority,ui and ai being top on the list of civ 6
thanks everyone for input.

 

[Disgustipated]

Question: I finally got around to playing India earlier this week, and wanted to utilize Dharma, it says you get the 2 follower beliefs right? So how do you tell which abilities are follower beliefs? When you open the religious screen it lists all the benefits of their religion, I think there were 4 of them total. I honestly couldn't tell if it was working or not. I did have a couple of cities with 1 follower of another religion, so I figure I should have been getting the follower beliefs.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Question: I finally got around to playing India earlier this week, and wanted to utilize Dharma, it says you get the 2 follower beliefs right? So how do you tell which abilities are follower beliefs? When you open the religious screen it lists all the benefits of their religion, I think there were 4 of them total. I honestly couldn't tell if it was working or not. I did have a couple of cities with 1 follower of another religion, so I figure I should have been getting the follower beliefs.

Each belief in the religion screen is marked with a white icon to let you know what type of belief it is. If the icon is five people, it is a follower belief. If the icon is a book and feather, it is a founder belief. If the icon is two hands clasped in prayer, it is a worship belief. If the icon is a candle, it is an enhancer belief.