Feedback: Buildings and Wonders

[Xyth]

So, I would rather have the obsolescence only apply to the science bonus, and still allow Monasteries to continue to be built for their missionary-producing abilities. Regardless of the particular obsolescence technology, is this possible?

Could we make Monasteries available early, but Missionaries available later in the game? Historically, religious communities played a significant role in preserving cultural and technical skills well before what Xyth thinks of in terms of evangelism.

The only AI-friendly way to separate the science bonus and the ability to build missionaries is by putting them on different buildings. Same issue with having them obsolete separately.

Perhaps monasteries shouldn't obsolete at all?

 

[Eucalyptus]

The only AI-friendly way to separate the science bonus and the ability to build missionaries is by putting them on different buildings. Same issue with having them obsolete separately.

Perhaps monasteries shouldn't obsolete at all?

Aha! Are missionaries actually sent out from `monasteries' in the real world? I don't think that this has happened so often --- perhaps Islam is a notable exception? Haven't missionaries generally arisen simply out of strongly-focussed religious communities rather than worldly-withdrawn monasteries? Missionaries also haven't needed the Christianity-biased Theology technology either --- the earliest Buddhist missionaries didn't even have any written scriptures.

Is the following better? Remove the association of Missionary production with Monasteries. Let the 10% science bonus obsolete at Scientific Method. Allow the continued building of Monasteries after Scientific Method. Monasteries are then still worth building for their cultural value and their bonuses in the presence of wonders such as Sankore. Associate missionary production instead with Great Temples (or Organised Religion). This gives a further motivation to build Great Temples, and pushes the start date for Missionaries back in time to a more appropriate point than Theology. Great Temples don't obsolete, and Missionaries can be produced forever after.

The model is then that a religious community that is sufficiently strongly-focussed to be able to build a Great Temple is also able to actively broadcast. Monasteries then represent places of withdrawal and cultural enrichment, but not evangelism. This function continues into the Modern Era.

Whilst I am here, it would be nice to be able to better implement the way that the technologies of the Industrial and Modern Eras eradicate religion. There could be a random chance each turn that each religion in each city evaporates, and the chance could increase with the number of Industrial and Modern Era technologies known so that by the Future Era the chance of any religion surviving in any city was negligible.

 

[Absolution]

If missionaries will request a great temple, it means that smaller civilizations will not be able to spread a religion.
Great Temples also remain extreamly rare untill the Medieval Era, in most games.

The idea of religions disappearing from the world is too evil.
And it does not seem to be true at all.
about 80% of the western world citizens believe in god, and more than a half realy follow the religion in many ways.
Maybe your can make the diplomatic effect of religions disappear in the Future Era.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think religion will evaporate in the foreseeable future; its political influence declines in some places, but then it does become relatively less important in modern times anyway in the game, simply because there are so many other substitutes for the benefits of a religion. Happiness, unit bonuses, and so on are all more available, so the specific benefits of religion peak out in the Renaissance, in relative terms.

Now, I like the idea of divorcing Missionary availability from Monasteries. Maybe you could make Missionaries require a technology and a monastery, so you still have to build the monastery, but can do so much earlier in the game... and still only get missionaries later on in medieval times.

 

[Eucalyptus]

If missionaries will request a great temple, it means that smaller civilizations will not be able to spread a religion.

This is a good point, but smaller civilizations can still adopt Organised Religion. Because they are so small, it shouldn't take them long to build all available flavours of Missionaries to evangelise all their own cities, and perhaps it is appropriate that small civilizations must run Organised Religion to be able to evangelise other civilizations.

Great Temples also remain extreamly rare untill the Medieval Era, in most games.

Not when I'm playing! That's perhaps an instance of observational bias:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimenter's_bias

The idea of religions disappearing from the world is too evil.
And it does not seem to be true at all.
about 80% of the western world citizens believe in god, and more than a half realy follow the religion in many ways.

This is the difference between being a general theist and a member of an organised religion. Many non-atheists in modern societies remain theists but are agnostic about the nature of God, so are not members of nameable religions, and perhaps describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious". These are often people who have abandoned the religion of their parents --- genuine atheists arise in numbers a generation later. Modern societies have created the social circumstances where this is possible on a scale undreamt of 200 years ago: When the social forces that compel people to remain members of organised religions (in particular family pressure and indoctrination in schools) become weaker, people who have the right to choose to walk away from the religion of their parents do so, and they rarely return or choose another religion. John Lennon was famously wrong about how fast this effect was --- sometime around 1970 he claimed that by the year 2000 Christianity would be irrelevant. (Can anyone make this statement precise?).

I'll concede that the effect under Judaism is weaker, but Judaism is a rare combination of tribal/national identity and organised religion. (No offence intended!)

In contrast, there is currently a lot less evidence for the Star Trek notion that nationalism and ethnic identity will evaporate by ~2400CE through merging.

Maybe your can make the diplomatic effect of religions disappear in the Future Era.

This could only apply between two Civilizations both in the Future Era. As it is in the real world, Civilizations can live in different Eras at the same moment in time. Currently, a Civilization can choose Free Religion, but their neighbours who have state religions will still pressure them to choose a religion to ensure alliances in one direction or another.

 

[Simon_Jester]

This is a good point, but smaller civilizations can still adopt Organised Religion. Because they are so small, it shouldn't take them long to build all available flavours of Missionaries to evangelise all their own cities, and perhaps it is appropriate that small civilizations must run Organised Religion to be able to evangelise other civilizations.

They may need to do it to evangelize themselves. I don't know about you, but when I was playing I found that the spread of religion via trade routes was quite slow, and getting my state religion into all my cities required a steady stream of missionaries even if I didn't try to spread it to other continents.

 

[Eucalyptus]

They may need to do it to evangelize themselves. I don't know about you, but when I was playing I found that the spread of religion via trade routes was quite slow, and getting my state religion into all my cities required a steady stream of missionaries even if I didn't try to spread it to other continents.

Whilst I find it slow, I find it not unreasonable and a good motivation to actively evangelise.

 

[Simon_Jester]

It's not unreasonable- but it means that any civilization which can't easily construct a Great Temple is penalized, if Great Temples are a prerequisite for missionaries. Another consequence is that no religion without a Great Temple can be spread without missionaries, which is similarly undesirable.

 

[Eucalyptus]

It's not unreasonable- but it means that any civilization which can't easily construct a Great Temple is penalized, if Great Temples are a prerequisite for missionaries. Another consequence is that no religion without a Great Temple can be spread without missionaries, which is similarly undesirable.

Well, tiny is really tiny here --- a Civilization only needs to have 3 Temples to be able to construct a Great Temple. They also need 3 Temples to be able to build the Shrine. I'm happy that tiny Civilizations are not able to build Great Temples or Shrines (or their Forbidden Palaces for that matter). Being tiny should mean being weak in many ways. My Civilization eats such Civilizations for breakfast and then builds their Great Temples and Shrines later.

Moreover, even the smallest Civilization can always run Organised Religion to be able to generate Missionaries and actively evangelise.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Another problem- this may only make it possible to build missionaries in the relative handful of cities that have cathedral-equivalent buildings (it usually isn't worth building them except in large cities in the first place).

That makes for another production bottleneck. Honestly, I like making missionaries based on monasteries, I just think monasteries should be available sooner even if missionaries aren't.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Proposed new National Wonder.
Name could be changed to be made more international.

Requires Pharmaceuticals.
(I think this Wonder might fit better one column earlier, but there are no relevant techs.
In any case, Pharmaceuticals could use a boost.)

Wonder gives +1 health to each Hospital.
Could have a total effect of +2 health per Hospital from this wonder if you also know Genetics.

If thought desirable for balance, one could reduce the base bonus for Hospitals and/or Genetics.

 

[Lirvan]

Proposed new National Wonder.
Name could be changed to be made more international.

Requires Pharmaceuticals.
(I think this Wonder might fit better one column earlier, but there are no relevant techs.
In any case, Pharmaceuticals could use a boost.)

Wonder gives +1 health to each Hospital.
Could have a total effect of +2 health per Hospital from this wonder if you also know Genetics.

If thought desirable for balance, one could reduce the base bonus for Hospitals and/or Genetics.

I like it. Something along the lines of National centers of disease control.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Currently Monasteries obsolete at Scientific Method.
While it is less than ideal, perhaps they can instead obsolete at Electricity.
Maxwell's Equations on electromagnetism were one transition to a more modern scientific theory.
Delaying things about 2 columns on the tech tree seems about right.

 

[Xyth]

Proposed new National Wonder.
Name could be changed to be made more international.

Requires Pharmaceuticals.
(I think this Wonder might fit better one column earlier, but there are no relevant techs.
In any case, Pharmaceuticals could use a boost.)

Wonder gives +1 health to each Hospital.
Could have a total effect of +2 health per Hospital from this wonder if you also know Genetics.

If thought desirable for balance, one could reduce the base bonus for Hospitals and/or Genetics.

I like it. Something along the lines of National centers of disease control.

I plan to eventually add the Human Genome Project at Genetics, which could have an effect along these lines.

Currently Monasteries obsolete at Scientific Method.
While it is less than ideal, perhaps they can instead obsolete at Electricity.
Maxwell's Equations on electromagnetism were one transition to a more modern scientific theory.
Delaying things about 2 columns on the tech tree seems about right.

Hmm, that works well enough. Although Electricity by itself doesn't make quite fit the theme, it requires a bunch of relevant techs (Physics, Chemistry, Corporation). Moreover it coincides with the Laboratory being unlocked.

 

[Howard Mahler]

What I proposed was a National Wonder rather than a World Wonder.
Also it would be available sooner.
Seems like there is room for both the National Institutes for Health and the Human Genome Project, which came later.

I plan to eventually add the Human Genome Project at Genetics, which could have an effect along these lines.

 

[Xyth]

What I proposed was a National Wonder rather than a World Wonder.
Also it would be available sooner.
Seems like there is room for both the National Institutes for Health and the Human Genome Project, which came later.

Actually it would probably be a project and thus affect all civilizations in some yet to be determined manner. Plenty of room in that corner of the tech tree though, yes.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Proposed New Building:
Requires Lighthouse.
Available with Compass.
Cost about the same as the Bath.
+2 food in the city. (or maybe +1 food and +1 coin.)
+1 additional food with Refrigeration.
+1 additional food with Automation.

 

[Simon_Jester]

"Deep Sea Fishing Fleet" is a rather cumbersome name, if you ask me...

Interesting idea though.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I play on Huge maps. Therefore, city maintenance for distance is very important.

The Courthouse is meant to deal with this.
On the one hand, it now is available later than in BTS.
On the other hand, Confederation is available not too far after courthouses.

Since Confederation eliminates all maintenance due to distance and gives a free trade route, it is very powerful on huge maps, particularly archipelago which I play on. So I almost always switch to Confederation, eliminating some of the benefit of courthouses. (I believe there is another civic which instead eliminates the number of cities maintenance, but you can have at most one of these two.)

Prior to Courthouses there is no direct way to deal with city maintenance, and relatively soon afterwards there are overlapping ways to deal with city maintenance.
I think it would be better if there were some earlier way to diminish city maintenance, but not as much as courthouses currently do.

Building X, available earlier than Courthouses that has half the current effect of Courthouses. (Either one of the two pieces or each piece at half.)
Halve the current maintenance effect of Courthouses and give them some other benefit.

This clearly would need a lot more thought to develop specifics. I am throwing it out there for discussion.

One weird possibility is for Courthouses to give a free Legal Great Person (a new type.) I do not know whether this is even possible, nor have a thought out what a legal specialist would do.

On a related note, does city maintenance for distance depend on map size?
Does the effect on trade routes of distance depend on map size?

 

[Howard Mahler]

Followup on my previous post.

Courthouses are available at Constitution, much, much later than in BTS, and after Confederation and Aristocracy are available.

Proposed new building City Hall. Cuts maintenance costs by 25%.
Most logical tech seems to be Record Keeping although Mathematics is also possible.
Cost maybe a little less than Harbor.
Perhaps it could have an espionage boost on the same logic as Jail.

Revise Courthouse to be: cuts maintenance costs by 25% rather than 50%, add 25% trade route yield (keep other features.)

Revise Tavern to be: no effect on Trade Routes, one free artist (keep other features.)

Now there would not be two buildings that effect Trade Routes in the same tech column.

The concept is that the rule of law is important for encouraging trade.

Historically Taverns were a gathering spot for poets, painters, musicians, writers, etc.
Also I believe Taverns with courtyards were an early place to put on plays.