Founding religions

[Lutefisk Mafia]

Just wanted to offer a suggestion for a new way to handle founding religions. The FfH2 development team seems to be very open to new ideas, so I thought I'd try posting it here.

I realize that there is some algorithm that picks a random smaller city in which to found the holy city of new religions. This has always annoyed me, and I often wish that there was a way to have some control over where the holy city gets put.

If I had my preference, the founding of a religion would not automatically designate a holy city. Instead, it would create a special great person in a random smaller city. The one thing that that great person can do is "found holy city of X." That way, the controlling civ could have the Mega-prophet move to a different city to found the holy city -- at the risk of losing the unit of course!

Another possibility would make it possible to use a great prophet or great engineer to move the holy city. Expend a great prophet in the holy city to deselect it as the "holy city" and create a new unit that can then travel to a different city and found the new replacement holy city.

Or maybe implement both ideas -- the Mega prophet unit found the first city and later on you can sacrifice a regular great prohet to deselect the present holy city, create a new Mega prophet who can then go on to found a new holy city.

Anyway, just my pet peeve. Any fair way to move holy cities or have more control over where they appear would be nice.

Any thoughts?

 

[MaxAstro]

I am frequently annoyed by holy cities popping up in my smallest, least defensible towns.

However, any method that allows moving holy cities will really just result in people moving all of their holy cities to their capital.

 

[xienwolf]

As I recall when they began to develop mobile wonders there was discussion of making all of the religious shrines portable as well. Then your Holy City can be stolen, or willfully relocated.

 

[Wyrmhero]

A religeous shrine being stolen? That is interesting. I'd like to see that happen, too. Might give a use for the Council of Esus Steal ability I never use because there's no good equipment... But, I suppose, in real life, if that happened, and say, someone stole an important religeous artifact, people would be annoyed with you (unless their in your country), but after a while, the anger would die down, and they would pilgrimage to the new site of the artifact. Maybe a version that doesn't work for ten turns would be appropriate, stopping people from always trying to steal them?

 

[Ahwaric]

The holy city placement is not entirely random. It takes into account a few factors:

-if the city is your capital (8 times lower chance than other cities)
-number of religions in the city (very important factor)
-size of the city
-random number

There was even an exact formula used in calculation posted on the boards, but I can't recall it now. Anyway, if you want religion in a specific city, make it big and get as many other religions in other cities as you can.

Ever since I learned it, I can get empyrean to the city of my choice. I just make it big and stop the growth of other cities, I also spread runes and leaves to all other cities.

As for the mobile holy sities, I do not like the idea. While I can imagine moving song of autumn, how can you move a site of holy visions?

 

[Caradoc]

Does having more religions help or hurt a city's chances?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think it hurts it, but often it doesn't seem particularly important. At least, it is far less important than being a capital. You can found 7 religions with 2 cities, and they will all be in the non-capital city.


None of the holy sites are "holy visions" (as far as I know). RoK, OO, FoL, and the Order have holy scriptures for their shrines, which could easily be stolen (although I suspect that there may be copies of them). AV has an event (when a city become sufficiently corrupted by the Veil, but the religion was still secret, all the children in the city were born with demonic markings. Most of these were murdered by their parents, but the few that survived naturally had great magical potential) . Not sure how to classify the "Day of Day" or the "Night of Night."

Personally I think I would rather have each religious tech provide a Great Prophet to the first to discover it, and to make it so that once the tech is founded the Great Prophet can found the religion. Well, I'd definitely prefer that in the main game at least. Maybe in FfH you could make it so that no techs found religions, but that when a religion the first spreads to a city that become the holy city. Or, so that the religious spread starts before the holy city and the shrine construction makes the city holy.

 

[Roghar]

I like not having control over it, and having to adapt my strategy to where the religion pops

One (inevitable) problem for me in civ and other empire building games with research is that as the player you know what lies ahead when you research, rather than the position the leader of an actual civilisation is of not knowing what the results of his decision will be. Ok, nothing one can do about that, but to then go and be able to choose where a religion starts?? Its bad enough that developing a new religion is something that you can choose to do (actually would be cool if it was an event for which you have to have the appropriate tech, but doesn't occur automatically), lets keep a bit of mystery in the game!

 

[Ahwaric]

I think it hurts it, but often it doesn't seem particularly important. At least, it is far less important than being a capital. You can found 7 religions with 2 cities, and they will all be in the non-capital city.

Not entirely true, but possible. I have finally found the formula posted by the VoiceofUnreason:

( 10 + currentPopulation + random(10) ) / (1 + current_religions_in_city )
where random is a number form 0 to 9
if the city is your capital, it is again divided by 8

So, if you have 1 religion in your capital and in the other city 6, you have 1 in 3 or 4 chance to get it in your capital

Note that it does not count if the city is the holy city or just has the religion, the chances are the same. And this calculation really works.

None of the holy sites are "holy visions" (as far as I know). RoK, OO, FoL, and the Order have holy scriptures for their shrines, which could easily be stolen

Well, I think there is a big difference between scripture or tablets and the place they were written or got from the gods. It is the same difference as between The Bible and Jerusalem/Sinai. I think what you have said about AV explains better what a holy city is.

Personally I think I would rather have each religious tech provide a Great Prophet to the first to discover it, and to make it so that once the tech is founded the Great Prophet can found the religion.

I personally like the idea as it is much more realistic than it is now (you actually do not need a prophet to establish a religion, but to build a holy building...). And it does not overpower philosophical leaders, too.

On the other hand I like the slight (if you know the math beyond it) unpredictability that the current mechanism provides, so I think is not so bad.

 

[xienwolf]

I like not having control over it, and having to adapt my strategy to where the religion pops

One (inevitable) problem for me in civ and other empire building games with research is that as the player you know what lies ahead when you research, rather than the position the leader of an actual civilisation is of not knowing what the results of his decision will be. Ok, nothing one can do about that, but to then go and be able to choose where a religion starts?? Its bad enough that developing a new religion is something that you can choose to do (actually would be cool if it was an event for which you have to have the appropriate tech, but doesn't occur automatically), lets keep a bit of mystery in the game!

Actually someone made a mod for normal Civ 4 along these lines It set up an option called "Blind Research" which would cause you to only be able to select which advisor you wanted to have in charge of your science (thus roughly control the path it takes), and you couldn't even see the Tech screen. Research speeds were quicker to compensate for being unable to control your own path, but it was mainly made by people who didn't like having absolute control over their research paths.

 

[Tarquelne]

Not particularly OnTopic, but:

I'd like to see a mechanism - maybe an event, maybe not - that allows for the creation of a second holy city in a different civ. To give us some Pope/Anti-Pope action!