Great Profit - Holy Sites

[hokath]

With G's intended removal of the Piety Finisher bonus to Holy Sites, they are relegated to perhaps the worst improvement in the game. As a reminder

+3 faith, +1 gold. +2 faith at Theology

The biggest issue is that the Great Prophet is not very common, and his other ability (to spread religion, eroding that of others) is very strong to a religious player. A weak improvement does not reflect the rarity.

The other issue is that only players who have founded religions see much of the Great Prophet, so there is some religious vs not religious player balance to be considered. Of course you can always go to war if you like someone's lands.


What suggestions do you guys have? Numbers boost? Improvements at technologies? Replace improvement with something else (expend for Great Work of Art/Artifact as in JFD's Piety?) and reuse the sweet art elsewhere?

 

[Funak]

The biggest issue is that the Great Prophet is not very common, and his other ability (to spread religion, eroding that of others) is very strong to a religious player. A weak improvement does not reflect the rarity.

I never really use them so spread religion, but if I didn't go piety I just made sure I never got a prophet (by spending faith on other stuff). So the biggest issues that I see are really that the great prophet:

1. Costs a fortune
2. Does nothing worth while
3. Competes in cost directly with things that actually do stuff (missionaries, inquisitor, faith-buildings and later on all other GPs)

 

[sleepyx732]

I remember months back when I was able to have like 2 holy sites per city. It was nice culture, but was definitely too much. I didn't play for a while, but since I came back faith generation has been nerfed HARD. I struggle to enhance my religion before renaissance and am typically always the last or 2nd to last to find a religion.

With faith's rarity, and the weakness of the great improvement, you are better off just using them for spread so you can build the religious (wonder) building. That is if you don't just use your faith on missionaries instead.

They might be worth using for the improvement if you get the policies that improve great improvement yields, but beyond that...

 

[Gazebo]

One thing I'll probably do is reduce the Great Prophet delta slightly. It's pretty steep right now.

G

 

[Funak]

I remember months back when I was able to have like 2 holy sites per city. It was nice culture, but was definitely too much. I didn't play for a while, but since I came back faith generation has been nerfed HARD. I struggle to enhance my religion before renaissance and am typically always the last or 2nd to last to find a religion.

More of a side-effect of prophets having tripled in price rather than faith-generation being nerfed. But yes their price spiral out of control quickly, and even the third prophet costs way too much to be worth using for a holy-site (which in turn have been reduced quite a bit in power)

One thing I'll probably do is reduce the Great Prophet delta slightly. It's pretty steep right now.

Honestly even if the first 5 great prophets would all cost 800/900/whatever the second one costs now, I'm not sure they would be worth building anyways, they just feel so weak you're probably better off building 5 missionaries to spread your religion.

 

[Kolaris]

Do Holy Sites ever get a Tourism bonus? It feels like they should but my games rarely get to Atomic/Info age.

 

[Gazebo]

More of a side-effect of prophets having tripled in price rather than faith-generation being nerfed. But yes their price spiral out of control quickly, and even the third prophet costs way too much to be worth using for a holy-site (which in turn have been reduced quite a bit in power)


Honestly even if the first 5 great prophets would all cost 800/900/whatever the second one costs now, I'm not sure they would be worth building anyways, they just feel so weak you're probably better off building 5 missionaries to spread your religion.

One thing I'd like to experiment with: Tourism on a tile. I think it's possible, though I'll need to make sure. Anyways, that'd be an interesting element to add to it (as there are no improvements with Tourism).

G

 

[iwiws]

I think I read you writing about Holy sites producing something else than just faith, somewhere ?
I think it would be key to have Holy sites be useful, because of one simple thing :
The "normal" way to get a Great Prophet is through Faith. Using them to get a simple faith income seems counter-intuitive.
So yeah, Holy sites with Tourism could be nice (to reflect Pilgrimage), and maybe other yields depending on policies (little boost on piety tree), wonders, beliefs, and even Ideology ?

 

[Gidoza]

I think it's good that this topic has been brought up, but what I think is missing here is the vastness of the Great Prophet's uselessness under the present conditions.

With the first Great Prophet (after getting bonus Religious tenets) costing 1600 Faith on Standard and with 5 generation per turn on the Improvement, we're looking at 320 turns for the Faith to pay off for itself. This means that the cheapest Great Prophet either just breaks even by the time is up in the game or makes a SLIGHT profit, and that any subsequent Great Prophet is wasted on the tile improvement - unless the previous Faith Social Policy was in existence, which is better, but still lacking somehow.

Secondly, since Great Prophets are generated only with Faith (as someone mentioned), they are indeed the most rare Great Person in the game: one cannot count on cities in general or in particular to generate points for them bit by bit. In the end, you're only going to get a few Great Prophets at best.

Thirdly, regarding Great Prophet's ability to convert - ultimately, this becomes a mathematics game of whether or not the Great Prophet or a swath of Missionaries will do the same job. This ends up being pretty lame. The Great Prophet isn't that great.


In order for the Great Prophet to be worth purchasing after the upgrade of a Religion, we'll need to thus have three factors in place.

1. Due to the Great Prophet's rarity, its abilities/improvements need to be unimaginably and stupidly powerful.

2. The Great Prophet's tile improvement either needs to have such a notable payoff in Faith as to be worth the investment, or otherwise provide some kind of other bonuses that engage the game in some way that other Great People wouldn't (Tourism on a tile is a good idea I agree, amongst other things - or perhaps an Improvement Improvement?).

3. The Great Prophet's conversion ability needs to be sufficiently differentiated from that of Missionaries so that it isn't just a mathematics game of which one to use.


Suffice it to say, I think that one of the results of these results are (again) that Great Prophets will need to be very strong and unique, and secondly that the scaling factor of their Faith costs can't remain the same as that of other Great People, as it just wouldn't make sense.




Anyways, I hope the above sets up the scenario well enough to weigh everything fully.



So for a random suggestion that could be interesting, but crazy: What if the Great Prophet's conversion ability was weaker, but could be used an infinite amount of times? Cue religion wars to kill Prophet.

 

[Zanteogo]

So for a random suggestion that could be interesting, but crazy: What if the Great Prophet's conversion ability was weaker, but could be used an infinite amount of times? Cue religion wars to kill Prophet.

Or.... increase the number of conversion to something like 10 ?

 

[iwiws]

Secondly, since Great Prophets are generated only with Faith (as someone mentioned)

Not exactly.
I think a wonder or two give free Great Prophets. The "choose a free GP" events (at least one in the ideologies, I think another in a wonder or two) can give you one. The Mayas can get one from their UA. I think I'm forgetting one other :/

 

[Gidoza]

Not exactly.
I think a wonder or two give free Great Prophets. The "choose a free GP" events (at least one in the ideologies, I think another in a wonder or two) can give you one. The Mayas can get one from their UA. I think I'm forgetting one other :/

I realize this - I was ignoring those as fact and just sticking to the standard methods of acquisition. Thanks for bringing it up, though.

 

[Coilean]

I am not saying I think Great Prophets are in a good place, but I would just like to point out that eventually (which is like t200 in the Immortal games I have been playing) Missionaries are mostly garbage for religion spread, unless you have the beliefs to make them better. In cities that are near max followers, missionaries do hardly anything, whereas the GP wipes them all out and turns them to your religion in a single spread, something it might take 15+ missionaries to accomplish.

 

[Enginseer]

The alternate solution would be to allow the construction of holy sites irregardless of how many times the Great Prophet has spread his religion (3 before disappearing I believe)

But of course, that might be too OP.

 

[Funak]

The alternate solution would be to allow the construction of holy sites irregardless of how many times the Great Prophet has spread his religion (3 before disappearing I believe)

But of course, that might be too OP.

And it wouldn't really change the fact that holy-sites are lackluster, it would just kinda force you to make them because the choice doesn't exist anymore.

 

[Enginseer]

And it wouldn't really change the fact that holy-sites are lackluster, it would just kinda force you to make them because the choice doesn't exist anymore.

Just make the Holy Site grant +1-2 faith to nearby tiles and it should be enough to suffice itself as not lackluster.

 

[Funak]

Just make the Holy Site grant +1-2 faith to nearby tiles and it should be enough to suffice itself as not lackluster.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, buffing surrounding tiles does not make a tile any more interesting, it just makes it feel weak and boring.

Farms are not fun because they buff surrounding farms, they are fun because they get buffed by surrounding farms.

 

[PurpleMentat]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, buffing surrounding tiles does not make a tile any more interesting, it just makes it feel weak and boring.

Farms are not fun because they buff surrounding farms, they are fun because they get buffed by surrounding farms.

I disagree. You may find them weak and boring, but that is your opinion, not objective fact. I quite like 'support' style abilities, and find them fun and interesting. Planning my cities to make best use of the Arabian UA, or villages, or anything that becomes stronger to to placement or makes things stronger due to placement (roads and trade routes passing over villages) is an extremely entertaining puzzle. Pulling it off well to get aesthetically pleasing cities with great yields is extremely satisfying. It's not about any individual tile, it's the sum of the parts that is interesting.

I do think Holy Sites buffing nearby tiles is not helpful. A Great Person improvement is something you should be able to slap down on any Strategic resource or Desert tile and be happy with the yields. They need to be sufficient in and of themselves, without regard to surroundings.

 

[Funak]

I disagree. You may find them weak and boring, but that is your opinion, not objective fact. I quite like 'support' style abilities, and find them fun and interesting. Planning my cities to make best use of the Arabian UA, or villages, or anything that becomes stronger to to placement or makes things stronger due to placement (roads and trade routes passing over villages) is an extremely entertaining puzzle. Pulling it off well to get aesthetically pleasing cities with great yields is extremely satisfying. It's not about any individual tile, it's the sum of the parts that is interesting.

I have no problem with trading posts, or farms or the arabian UA, but this is a completely different thing. With all those three improvements/things you get a reward on the tile in question for doing work around it, here you get a reward on the tiles around it for doing work in the middle. Spreading out yields over a lot of tiles just make the yields feel a lot less interesting. I mean what sounds more fun? Building a 9 food tile with 6x 2 food tiles around it, or building a 3 food tile with 6x 3 food tiles around it?
It's going to provide you with the same amount of yields, but in the first scenario the middle-tile feels really cool and special, while in the second scenario all tiles feel 'meh'.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I agree with PurpleMentat. Support abilities can be fun. They work as a force-multiplier for the tiles around them. It's like a support class in an rpg. They don't do much damage themselves, but they make the other characters do more damage.

I totally get that it's not for everyone, but there's no denying the advantages of having one around. Let others have their flavor of fun.