Going for Gold: Reformation Beliefs

[pineappledan]

Regardless of Bite's comments (which I disagree with), Inquisition is an Enhancer, not a Reformation.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I think sacred sites is fine. The tourism on wonders is the biggest factor, not the faith buildings. When combined with goddess of beauty, you have a huge incentive to hoard wonders, and it can be very potent if you’ve managed to maintain a competitive tech position (council of elders can be huge for that).

I value sacred sites extremely low. All you get is tourism, which might help in getting more influence over others, but offers absolutely nothing to achieve anything else you need for a CV. (like science to unlock wonders, culture to unlock enough policies, production/generation for wonders/great people,...)
It's lookin in my eyes even worse, if you compare it with the zoo building, giving on 3 forest/jungle tiles as much tourism as you would get with 2 faith buildings.

 

[pineappledan]

If sacred sites is going to be "wide CV", I think the bonus to wonders is out of place. Maybe it should just be +4 to all religious buildings instead? (shrines, temples, Grand Temple, faith purchase buildings)

 

[Drakle]

Sacred Sites - Hotels, all buildings purchased with Faith and Natural Wonders gain +3 Tourism each.

5% of empire-wide per turn culture, before modifiers converts into Tourism each turn.

This makes it proper wide tourism. Wonders which lean taller empires are removed. Instead culture, which increases as the empire gets wider and bigger, converts into tourism.

Before modifiers to not make mosques and golden ages a must-have, and to make it more of a wide thing. The capital can stack up various cultural modifiers. Thought that can also go as well if need be.

5% isn't a hard modifier. It could go up or down to balance it.

 

[azum4roll]

If sacred sites is going to be "wide CV", I think the bonus to wonders is out of place. Maybe it should just be +4 to all religious buildings instead? (shrines, temples, Grand Temple, faith purchase buildings)

If wide tourism penalty is being tweaked this could work.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I too would change the Sacred Sites to help wide CV contenders considerably more.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Education's faith for GP expenditure needs a buff. It's very trivial at 20, even with era scaling; I believe 25 or even 50 would feel much better, without being too impactful. Yes, it is the secondary bonus for the belief, but still, as of now it is too insignificant considering it is a Reformation.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I still think both Defender of the Faith and Crusader's spirit are really weak reformation beliefs.
I think Defender of the faith could be slightly better if it allowed purchase of defensive buildings with faith just like Faith of the masses and Jesuit education both buffing a certain line of buildings and allowing purchasing it with faith.
Crusader's spirit is ok on paper but the amount of gold/culture on city capture is very low already that's barely noticeable .... Sometimes it's less than the amount needed to upgrad a medieval unit to a renaissance one which is absurd in my book.

I recently picked Crusader Spirit, and I echo this sentiment: the city capture yields seem disappointingly low. Capturing a size 8 Maya city in late medieval netted me 150 and 150, which was just half a turn of culture for me. Even the Maya capital, size 13 with 3 wonders, got me just 500 and 500. That seems less, relative to
1. The Oracle, which comes way earlier, when average cultural output is very low, gives 400 and 400. Capturing a well developed enemy capital with Crusader Spirit should not be too inferior to a good wonder imo
2. Terracotta army: not sure about the numbers here, but killing 150 should perhaps be equivalent to killing ~4 pikemen

Thoughts?

 

[pineappledan]

I still think it is weird that Crusader Spirit is the only Reformation belief that has its full power out of the box, with no tech unlocks of any kind.

Others augment buildings (so you need those relevant techs), the World Congress, Faith-Purchasing Great People, Archaeology, etc., but you get all the yields on conquest and combat strength regardless of what era you are in with Crusader

 

[stii]

Maybe it should mirror defender and give faith for barracks and up?

I do think it is fairly powerful for war already though.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I gave this a little more thought, and the issue seems to me that Crusader Spirit does not give any wide-scaling bonuses. 500 may be good for a 7 city empire in the Medieval era, but it's pretty meh for a 13 city empire, since the required for new policies increases with number of cities.

Like @stii said, faith/culture for military buildings is a good thematic fit, and scales with number of cities, but it might make the belief too powerful.

Just thinking out loud - does the GA point requirement scale with number of cities? If not, then the belief could just give a lump sum of GA points instead of culture - that would make the belief more appealing to wide as well.

 

[azum4roll]

Hero worship already gives GAP on city capture.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I'll just say that in 95% of my games Faith of the masses (extra culture on amphitheaters etc.) gets taken first. I really think it needs to be nerfed or others buffed.

 

[tothePAIN]

I'll just say that in 95% of my games Faith of the masses (extra culture on amphitheaters etc.) gets taken first. I really think it needs to be nerfed or others buffed.

I’d agree this meant something except the AI’s 1st choice of religion isn’t always the best one. Divine Inheritance is usually 1st pick for founding AIs, and @CrazyG argued pretty convincingly that it isn’t that strong.

AI definitely reflexively goes for it. Even though Knowledge through Devotion is better for tradition…

 

[DeAnno]

If the AI knew what it was doing I still maintain TTGOG should always be the first pick with AIs fighting hard to reform fastest and get it. Instead they rarely pick it at all.

 

[tothePAIN]

If the AI knew what it was doing I still maintain TTGOG should always be the first pick with AIs fighting hard to reform fastest and get it. Instead they rarely pick it at all.

It doesn’t provide any benefits until Industrial though. TTGOG is best pick if reforming late but otherwise…

 

[pineappledan]

The only unlock that is later is the faith purchase of archaeologists from KtD, which is not the main meat of that belief. All that TtGoG gives is a vestigial yields on GP until late game, so being a powerful late effect is warranted

 

[LifeOfBrian]

tothePain, I agree, it doesn't mean it's (always) the best, but for heavy religious spreaders (and if you get reformation, you usually are that), I think it's far away the best. I can imagine getting more out of a GP-heavy Tradition game with KtD, but other than that I think FotM is consistently provides the best early&mid-game yields, i.e. lots of culture and happiness. Jesuit Education "only" gives science (and a bit of faith), which isn't that great because there are built-in mechanics for catching up in science (and if you have more culture, you'll get social policies faster, ultimately meaning more science). KtW is best suitable for tradition capitals, but generally it provides much less culture than FotM, it provides a lot of science (but again you have catching up mechanics for that) and faith (but if you're already a heavy spreader, faith isn't that important, especially later on). TtGoG starts being useful only from Industrial era onwards, by that time you can already fall behind considerably compared to FotM. Sacred sites/Tourism is rubbish. Crusader spirit is too weak culturally compared to FotM and Defender of the faith is good, but not as good as FotM, as it doesn't give you happiness and is much slower to get yields from (you have to build the buildings, not faith-buy, and you often won't want to build all defensive structures in all cities), and when it comes to warmongering, neither combat bonuses are that helpful. Global commandments is good for civs that have lots of alliances/votes, but that is too situational to depend your game on consistently, it's usually an "all or nothing" belief.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't know about Faith of the Masses being too strong, but I do agree its better than Jesuit Education. hehe it seems like those two are always flipping, every time we change one the power completely flips.

 

[tothePAIN]

Recent patches have nerfed science comeback mechanics (spies) sufficiently that I value science more now and culture a little less.

I don’t find the Faith of the Masses pick to be strong enough to be nerf worthy. I’d take it as a wide civ but as tall tradition, KtW fills in Tradition’s comparative science weakness much better.


Also, there should be some reward for reforming faster and winning the reformation race. If fotM is a little stronger, so be it.

The combat bonuses from Crusader Spirit and DotF are harder to value but they are definitely important. There was a game where I had a Zulu neighbor with Crusader Spirit… those % bonuses mattered.

Jesuit Education is comparatively weaker because culture is scarcer than science, still, and it’s secondary effect of faith in GP yield is much weaker than the bonus happiness from FotM.

As Authority, I probably still want FotM but Jesuit Education is probably on par because Authority wants science.